Pornhub is blocking access in Texas

Adult site Pornhub has blocked access for users in Texas due to a legal battle with the state's attorney general over its age verification law. Last week, a federal appeals court upheld a Texas law that could begin enforcing its age verification rules for porn sites. Visitors to pornhub.com in Texas are now greeted with a message calling the Texas law "ineffective, haphazard and dangerous."

Here's What We Know

In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, alleging that it violated the state's June 2023 age verification law, which not only required age verification with a state-issued ID card, but also that all adult sites display in large print a message purportedly coming from Texas Health and Human Services about the pseudoscientific "dangers" of pornography. The health department said it had nothing to do with the law or the message it was forcing the sites to display.

Paxton's complaint in Travis County District Court sought civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each day since the law went into effect on 19 September 2023.

In its filing, Aylo said that providing identification every time visitors want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution to protect users online and actually puts minors and users' privacy at risk.

In a rather amusing but expected turn of events, Google searches for "VPN" spiked after the appeals court ruling was released. As you might have guessed, Texas now tops the list of states for VPN searches, indicating that people are now looking for ways to get around Pornhub's shutdown in the region.

Source: 404media, Arstechnica