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Pornhub Disables Website In Texas After Age-Verification Lawsuit (thehill.com) 187

"Pornhub has disabled its site in Texas," reports the Hill, "to object to a state law that requires the company to verify the age of users to prevent minors from accessing the site." Texas residents who visit the site are met with a message from the company that criticizes the state's elected officials who are requiring them to track the age of users. The company said the newly passed law impinges on "the rights of adults to access protected speech" and fails to pass strict scrutiny by "employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas's stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors." Pornhub said safety and compliance are "at the forefront" of the company's mission, but having users provide identification every time they want to access the site is "not an effective solution for protecting users online... Attempting to mandate age verification without any means to enforce at scale gives platforms the choice to comply or not, leaving thousands of platforms open and accessible," the message said, adding that "very few sites are able to compare the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place."
The article adds that the state's attorney general is suing the owners of Pornhub for $1.6 million failing to enact age verification, plus an additional $10,000 a day.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader ArchieBunker for sharing the news.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Pornhub Disables Website In Texas After Age-Verification Lawsuit

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  • This is so stupid (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheSlashdotHunter ( 10317841 ) on Saturday March 16, 2024 @11:45PM (#64321279)
    These states are pushing people to use VPNs (wonder how many congressmen that vote this crap have investments in VPNs) or go to sites that will likely infect their citizen's computers. If we had a real computer verification system run by the government, like driver licenses are, then maybe you could implement this, but without a government backed verification system, this is just plain stupid.
    • by christoban ( 3028573 ) on Saturday March 16, 2024 @11:51PM (#64321287)

      Any government run age verification system for accessing porn is a First Amendment violation of protected speech.

      • Re:This is so stupid (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TheSlashdotHunter ( 10317841 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @12:09AM (#64321313)
        A driver's license is used in book stores to purchase adult materials, like magazines, blu rays, etc. If the government could create a verification system (which in itself would be hard to do and is why it doesn't exist), then requiring you to verify yourself with that system would be no different. The problem is, they have no such system.

        Kids can easily install an opera browser and set the vpn, and use something like Tor, which would probably expose them to far worse things. Kids are smarter than people think. They will circumvent this as easily as adults will. I do wish the supreme court would get rid of this, but instead the supremes think bump stocks don't create automatic weapons, so we know they are a bunch of true ideological idiots.
        • A driver's license is used in book stores to purchase adult materials, like magazines, blu rays, etc.

          I'm middle aged and certainly look it, so I haven't been carded in quite awhile. It's really only younger folks who have to deal with showing ID.

          • by christoban ( 3028573 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @12:54AM (#64321373)

            I'm middle aged and certainly look it, so I haven't been carded in quite awhile. It's really only younger folks who have to deal with showing ID.

            And if you live in one of these states, now you'll not only be carded every time you buy porn, but every single time you access it. With a government run identity system, your identity will be tagged to your chats, your specific views, your searches, every single interaction. Every single thing you comment, say, is now public and tied to your true identity in a provable way.

            Online anonymity will cease to exist, for all things.

            And if you think that won't happen, you know nothing about technology, politicians, or criminals. If you thing that kind of system won't be soon expanded into every other thing you do online, you're a fool.

            • I'm not sure how you interpreted this as being supportive of this dumb idea. Since I do live in a state that is presently attempting to pass exactly the same idiocy, I'll likely just install a VPN and lament even harder the fact my state is run by morons who hate freedom. Not that I'm really surprised, the 1A is pretty much just a suggestion in Florida and is among several of the red states all trying to see which one can speedrun fascism the hardest.

              • Yeah, like the Russians and Chinese have to do to access their internet.

                Great fucking idea, until the government decides to outlaw the use of VPNs to bypass identity services!

                • Great fucking idea, until the government decides to outlaw the use of VPNs to bypass identity services!

                  Getting your entertainment content by sailing the high seas is already illegal and they're not having much luck enforcing that, either.

              • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

                Guys, this is Texas, the folks who wrote this law don't even know what a VPN is. "A vee pee ern? Whut size bullets do they take?".
                • Re:This is so stupid (Score:5, Informative)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @06:41AM (#64321719) Homepage Journal

                  Texas has also banned abortion, and some politicians are talking about banning contraceptives for non-married couples, and even sex except for the purposes of reproduction. Those people are on the fringes of the GOP, but history tells us that they are really just the ones dumb enough to say out loud what many of the others are thinking.

                  Of course, last week we found yet another one of them had an account on a gay hook-up site. Repressing that stuff seems to make them want to force others to be joyless too.

                  • A year ago, everyone said the "let's abandon Ukraine to the Orcs!" crowd was tiny and inconsequential, and now they're successfully holding up critical battlefield funding, undermining support in Europe, and their candidate for president is promising to give Ukraine to his gal pal on day one.

                    13 years ago I defended the Republican Party on abortion on the grounds that they'd never, ever win. Now it's illegal in many states.

                    I no longer shit all over the slippery slope argument.

        • by christoban ( 3028573 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @12:47AM (#64321365)

          Showing your ID is a LOT different from passing every one of your porn views through an electronic government surveillance system.

          It's an unwarranted search and a violation of privacy, as well.

        • by cstacy ( 534252 )

          Kids can easily install an opera browser and set the vpn, and use something like Tor, which would probably expose them to far worse things. Kids are smarter than people think. They will circumvent this as easily as adults will.

          It's not intended to stop kids.

          And what the adults will do is just buy Nord VPN or some other heavily-advertised product. Nobody is going to install a new browser or figure out Tor, except some super geek nerds who read Slashdot.

          • True, of course I didn't install a new browser or Tor.

            I rented a VPS and installed my own VPN. Because I was the only one using it, and how I set it up, it basically skipped all the VPN detection stuff.

            • This solution right here works great, so long as you dont use linode or similarly popular VPSs where so many people are doing the same thing that it gets flagged anyways

        • If the government could create a verification system (which in itself would be hard to do and is why it doesn't exist)

          I don't know why you think it would be hard, all you need is a backend with a hash of the drivers license and government ID numbers, date of birth, and hash of the name. The site submits an oauth query of the name and ID hash, if both of those are in the same record the date of birth is checked, if that's over 18 an OK is returned, if under 18 a DENIED is returned, and otherwise a NOT FOUND is returned.

          Probably want a rate limit per name hash and per ID hash to prevent abuse, and you're done. It's one of

          • Does it have to be the government? You take your iPhone and passport or driving license to the nearest Apple Store, they check it is your phone, they check the license is genuine, and enter your date of birth into the keychain. Samsung can do the same. Yes, my 16 year old son might be able to use my phone, but if he can do that, he can also access any porn site and hand over my data for age verification.
            • No. Porn sites used to just force you to submit a credit card to associate with your account, and that was it. No government intervention required.

        • by larwe ( 858929 )
          There is a huge difference between "flash an ID to a store clerk, pay cash for my naughty books, no records kept that could be traced back to me" vs "use a system of age verification online which might log and record what you bought, if only because Shein wants to advertise a realistic cucumber toy to me tomorrow". Oh, and also, the latter will never actually stop children from accessing naughty things online, so this entire thing is ridiculous theater.
        • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @07:20AM (#64321779)

          A driver's license is used in book stores to purchase adult materials, like magazines, blu rays, etc. If the government could create a verification system (which in itself would be hard to do and is why it doesn't exist), then requiring you to verify yourself with that system would be no different.

          Quite wrong. When you purchase adult material physically, you show your driver's license, but it does not get recorded. Any type of electronic verification will record what you did because the surveillance fascists cannot help themselves and most of the population is clueless.

          • Where i live all stores now scan your id for purchases like whiskey, cigars, and porn. So there is a record. They did this after excise started cracking down on them. College kids were using fake IDs and one bar had dozens of minors in it when it was busted.

            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Ah, so you are even deeper in surveillance fascism than I thought. My condolences.

            • That's why I destroyed the barcode on the back. It's just enough damage that it's not scannable, just looks like a small scratch if you look at it.

              Only took me about 10 minutes with a scanner and a knife to get it right. Stores give up after a couple attempts and just type in a birthday.

              If you don't like the idea of permanent damage, you can just print up a barcode sticker with bogus info. But there's really never been a downside to having it unreadable, I've done it ever since they started putting barco

        • Kids are smarter than people think.

          The average 10 year old is certainly much more tech savvy than most any legislator.

          • That might be stretching it. Sure, your nerdy 10 year old definitely knows more but the biggest thing about being young and inquisitive is that you really don't "fear" breaking shit while discovering stuff about it. You learn a lot and usually things can be reset to factory defaults. Kids have a lot more time to play with that stuff.

            Now, as an adult, do you REALLY want to break something knowing you'll be paying for a new one or otherwise spending way to much time fixing it? I don't have half the time as an

      • by ravenshrike ( 808508 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @12:15AM (#64321325)

        No it's not. Prior to the internet, when all these things were actually decided, you had to go to stores which would... wait for it... ID you to ensure you were over 18 and would be in deep shit from a slew of charges if they sold adult material to a minor. Or you could get it through the mail but that would require checks or a credit card, which by and large minors did not have. Whereas not clicking a checkbox is all that's required. That doesn't even get into the fact that the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of the content available on the internet fails the Miller test outright. All the short clip material, gifs, and the majority of the pictures certainly.

        • That should say whereas now, not whereas not.

          Also, rather amusingly, the clothing and device related fetish material will probably be more likely to survive any Miller challenges than the less involved stuff.

        • No it's not.

          Actually the jury is out. There are multiple different rulings on the First Amendment validity of laws. In fact the very law being discussed here is currently subject to it's final appeal, and has so far been ruled once unconstitutional, and once constitutional. So far the supreme court hasn't weighed in on these specific state based laws, but they did strike down COPA on the same grounds that this Texas laws was ruled unconstitutional.

        • I mean that. This is something conservatives really hate. Things change. The world changes. And you can't just keep applying old standards that worked when you were a kid.

          For the Internet anonymity is important. It lets you safely engage with the discourse on controversial topics like workers & civil rights, sexuality and religion without fear of immediate reprisal. And over and over that fear has been justified.

          I do not consider it a fair trade to give up what makes the Internet the Internet in
      • by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @01:21AM (#64321409) Homepage

        Any government run age verification system for accessing porn is a First Amendment violation of protected speech.

        The real elephant in the room is that parents have been giving their kids unrestricted devices capable of accessing porn sites in the first place. Nobody wants to talk about holding those folks accountable for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, because there's just too many of them.
         

        • Back when they were the main way of getting it, kids could physically walk or bicycle to the stores. Those stores had to check ID because if they sold porn to a kid they were liable for multiple crimes. Which is why kids would pay a bum to get the porn for them.

        • parents have been giving their kids unrestricted devices

          My kids ride their bikes to school. A busybody saw them and called the police to report "unattended children."

          Was that you?

        • Any government run age verification system for accessing porn is a First Amendment violation of protected speech.

          The real elephant in the room is that parents have been giving their kids unrestricted devices capable of accessing porn sites in the first place. Nobody wants to talk about holding those folks accountable for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, because there's just too many of them.

          That is a profoundly ignorant comment. Do you even have a phone? iPad? You know it's nearly impossible to block open websites. Even commercial solutions...they're less effective than the best anti-spam filter and I still get trump texts and scam e-mails daily despite Google being a leader in stopping such scams. I happen to mark every spam as spam to help train the tools, but there are millions of poor desperate people looking for ways of tricking these systems....similarly there are a similar amount p

        • and I didn't worry about it in the slightest. Because I also let me kid date, got them a driver's license and let them us my car (couldn't afford to buy them their own until college, when it became a requirement because the Uni spreads out campuses and basically demands kids have cars). Also gave them access to birth control and explained the risks and how to mitigate them.

          If you treat your kids like people who just happen to have a lot less experience then it's not a problem. It's when you treat your k
      • 1) bar are requested to check ID and refuse alcohol for minor
        2) porn store and porn selling/renting out fit have to check for ID and refuse sale/renting to minor

        All that is a precedence case that the government can and do restrict sales of certain material to minor and thus can enforce ID checks.
        • I'm not so worried about minors. I'm worried about us adults who are now going to have all our activity tracked using identity tokens, not by some bar owner or gas station attendant, but by the fucking government. And they're gonna expand it, I promise you. This is the end of online anonymity.

          And you pearl clutching morons seem to want to give it away because some kids may see some boobies.

        • 1) bar are requested to check ID and refuse alcohol for minor
          2) porn store and porn selling/renting out fit have to check for ID and refuse sale/renting to minor

          That's not the same thing.

          If I show my ID to enter a bar, the bouncer looks at the ID and hands it back to me.

          No permanent record is made of where I was and when I was there.

          • Yet. Most state IDs have barcodes on the back now. I can't even return something at Best Buy without them scanning that bar code with all of my information. At any time, a bar could start doing the same to make sure their bouncer isn't letting anyone in that is underage.

            • This is already happening in college towns.

            • by dryeo ( 100693 )

              A bar, nightclub tried that here (Vancouver BC), there was enough push back that they stopped.

            • It's not hard to damage the barcode just enough that it won't scan. I've been doing it since they started putting barcodes on licenses.

              It's never been a problem for me, and stores can't just scan it and get every bit of info on the license in their database.

              I remember seeing that barcode on my license the first time and wondering what was in there, so I scanned it. And... yeah, name, address, birthday, license type, and if you didn't opt out of having SSN on the license, that too. (Had to scan somebody e

    • If we had a real computer verification system run by the government, like driver licenses are, then maybe you could implement this, but without a government backed verification system, this is just plain stupid.

      You can't implement this because the internet is world wide. Expecting some adult site in Russia to comply with a Texas law is like that old saying about wishing in one hand and shitting in the other to see which one fills up faster. If you really want to age restrict the internet, you do it at the consumer broadband/cell service provider level, where you'll be dealing entirely with domestically based companies.

      • Sites outside the U.S. have been banned in the U.S. We do it almost as much as Russia and China actually. If the system existed and they didn't comply, they'd be blocked. Again, a simple VPN could allow anyone access though, which again goes back to my "This is so stupid" original comment.
        • How does a state ban a site from the internet? Or are you implying that each individual state wishing to censor the internet will operate their own mini version of China's firewall and only allow content which complies with all of the state's laws?

          Just thinking about it made me throw up in my mouth a little. There is truly something wrong with politicians who look at what Russian and China do and think "I'd like some of that here."

          • The state would file a lawsuit in federal court to get the site banned. They would need to show that the site was allowing minors on the site, but that would be enough to do it.

    • Welcome to the 1950's all over again. These past 5 years have seen enshitification on many fronts.
  • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday March 16, 2024 @11:51PM (#64321289)

    Pornhub has disabled its site in Texas,

    [...]

    The article adds that the state's attorney general is suing the owners of Pornhub for $1.6 million failing to enact age verification, plus an additional $10,000 a day.

    Pornhub should offer to settle with the AG Ken Paxton by teaching him how to use a VPN.

    • There is no 'Adult' way to verify online. Even a simple mask will fool online camera selfies, or someone diverts the camera feed to something else - or a live AI selfie they created on a server - it could be anywhere. Credit card numbers and SSN's only amplify the problem and risk of kids snapping images of mum or dad's ID amplifying fraud. Therefore cutting the content for Tx is fully justified. You can't develop a system that does not exist. IF there was a solution, it would be a simple general knowledge
      • ID.me is perfectly capable of doing this. The problem is not lack of technical support.

        The problem is the serious 1A violation.

        • Not inherently a 1A violation. Not only does the vast majority of the content on the internet currently out there fail the Miller test, thus making the sites not actually protected at all by the 1A, but requiring ID before allowing the sale of 18+ materials was always legal. Mind you, the arguably better way to do it would be for Texas to get evidence of a minor using the site and then charge the site owners and operators with contributing to the corruption of a minor and throw some RICO charges in there as

        • You mean YOUR enrollment process that includes a selfie and high grade identity documents. ID.me claims they do not sell you data - but who knows later down the track. Also regulatory requirements - means you do not have control. Row level encryption where the individual holds the key is not in common use yet. Using NFID out of your phone is close to secure - as long as the kids do not borrow your primary phone. Printing single use adult QR passes on alcohol bottles is one possibility - or asking the bottle
      • Or they could do what porn sites used to do and just require a credit card be associated with an account.

  • Florida also revamped their social media ban for minors bill to include a provision for age checking on adult sites. [wfla.com]

    If this was really just about protecting kids, the age checks would be implemented at the service provider level (and yeah, that would probably mean places like Starbucks would have to implement filtering or check IDs before giving you the WiFi password), but it's really just holier-than-thou politicians who are miffed that people can look at porn on the internet.

    • Which actually would be unconstitutional. There is nothing on the service providers end that requires the consumer to be 18+.

      • Which actually would be unconstitutional.

        It's a bit of a stretch to interpret ISPs and hotspot providers requiring their customers be 18+ as being unconstitutional, since we require you to prove you're 18+ even to register to vote. Short of recreating China's great firewall, you're simply not going to get every adult site on the world-wide internet to comply with a US state's local laws. If your goal really is to keep access to adult content limited to just adults, that's really the only practical way to do it.

        Personally, I think things are fine

        • Ignoring the fact that you clearly know effectively nothing about the process of adolescent brain development and why allowing under 18s(and really under 21s, wow, it's almost like the founders fully understood that young people's decision making skills weren't up to snuff even if they didn't understand the mechanism of action. The fact that the 26th amendment was passed entirely because of the draft, an inherently evil usage of government power doesn't make it better) to vote is a fundamentally bad idea, t

  • Wouldn't the Stefan Brands credential technology work to minimize privacy loss?

  • by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @02:03AM (#64321433)
    I totally agree that Texas should be allowed to make them check the age of users. But what the law wants is not checking the age, and not tracking the age, but tracking the identity of users. And that is a violation of their privacy.

    It is technically quite feasible that your phone or computer knows your birth date, and the website asks âoeis this user 27 years oldâ for example, and the phone answers yes, no or donâ(TM)t know. And you get your content, or you are told that you need to be 27, or the website explains how to set up your phone. At no time would their server know who you are, or how old you are. Only that you are above or below the requested age.
    • That's not checking ID. If you were to buy porn at a physical location and you presented ID that was easy to tell it's not you, and you were a minor or could be a minor given how old you looked, and the clerk accepted that ID, that clerk would be criminally liable.

      • On the one hand, you would be creating a black market for pre-verified devices. On the other hand the physical stores can't prevent your sending in a proxy adult to buy for you. Depending on the location, that's not even illegal.

        • On the one hand, you would be creating a black market for pre-verified devices. On the other hand the physical stores can't prevent your sending in a proxy adult to buy for you. Depending on the location, that's not even illegal

          That's what you have laws for. "It is a crime punishable by xxx to use a phone that isn't mine for age verification purposes". Small change to the UI: When the porn server asks "are you this age or older" a message appears "A porn server asked for this information. Are you John Smith, born on the 3rd of April 1996? If you don't want to give this information, press cancel. If you are this person, press "Yes", otherwise press "No" It is a federal crime to press "Yes" if you are not this person".

          So the ques

        • And kids used to pay the nearest bum to buy it for them. The adult in question would be criminally liable, but not the clerk. Well, unless the clerk saw the obvious minors handing the bum money and pointing at his store.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Another one that does _not_ understand how technology works. How pathetic.

  • You forgot to add "And if you want to escape your nanny state, here's how to use Tor. Suck it up, AG Dufus, and learn that your laws mean jack shit on the internet, just stop trying to eliminate free speech and instantly stop embarrassing yourself in the process".

  • Texas... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @03:38AM (#64321543)
    ...where everyone has the right to carry a loaded gun but dildos are illegal & sex education is controversial.
  • Because that is what making access to porn harder does. Great job.

  • ...literally nothing of value was lost.
    I know that everyone loves a good wank but I'm reasonably sure that making sure it's accessible to children of all ages shouldn't be a goal.

  • Texas has "Texas Freedom." If you are a white male who like guns, horses, cigarettes, and beer, you have Texas Freedom.

    However, you are NOT free in Texas if you are:
    1. Hispanic looking (regardless of citizenship)
    2. A woman (sorry, Texas and rapists owns your uterus)
    3. Anyone associated with LGBTQ+.

    Rapists have more reproductive freedom than woman in Texas.

    For the record, lack of a rape clause is akin to "prima nocta", where royalty would sleep with subjects on their wedding nights, such is the control o

  • This porn ban brought to you by Nord VPN
  • There is a free VPN service/project funded by Voice of America call nthLink, aimed at journalists and political activists that works great. It's free and it works great.

  • by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Sunday March 17, 2024 @04:17PM (#64322945)
    If the owners have voluntarily blocked their own website in the state of Texas, how does Texas have standing to enforce or sue over their laws? It seems that the company is no longer doing business in the state of Texas, so I don't understand how they can be liable to Texas laws.

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