Pornhub continues to fight against ineffective age verification laws that could harm the porn industry

According to Pornhub, the age verification laws are ineffective and may even affect porn jobs

Pornhub will soon be blocked in five more US states as the site continues to fight age-verification laws they consider invasive of privacy.

The laws state that Internet users must present an ID to access pornographic content.

Based on these laws, proof of age will not only be mandatory for users watching porn movies, but content creators with porn jobs will also undergo a similar verification check.

How does Pornhub verify age and porn jobs?

According to a blog post by Pornhub, visitors to the adult site in Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky and Nebraska will be greeted with a video on July 1 in which adult porn actress Cherie Deville explains why they were forced to make the difficult decision to block access to Pornhub.

Pornhub explains that, like blocks in Texas, Utah, Arkansas, Virginia, Montana, North Carolina, and Mississippi, they refuse to comply with the soon-to-be-enacted age verification laws in those states.

In their view, these laws pose significant risks to users, including identity theft, phishing and other harm.

According to Pornhub, age-verification laws that require visitors to adult websites to "provide private information across the Internet" normalize the unnecessary disclosure of personally identifiable information.

The company warns that "this is not a good approach from a data protection point of view".

However, the service is not opposed to age verification and supports laws requiring device-based verification, which allows users to access adult sites after authenticating their identities on their devices.

According to Pornhub, this is "the best and most effective way to protect both minors and adults."

"It would be enough to verify users once, through their operating system, rather than on each age-restricted site," writes Pornhub's blog.

They say this would "significantly reduce privacy risks and simplify compliance for regulators".

Aylo, the owner of Pornhub, said through a spokesperson:

Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions around the world have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard and dangerous.

"Any regulation that requires thousands of adult sites to collect large amounts of highly sensitive personal data puts users' safety at risk," the spokesperson said.

"Furthermore, experience shows that in the absence of proper enforcement, users will simply visit other non-compliant sites or find other ways to circumvent the law."

Pornhub's main complaint about the current age-control laws is that they are difficult to enforce and make visiting an adult site even more risky.

On their blog they wrote:

Since users are required to provide highly sensitive information to age verification software, this opens the door to many privacy breaches.

They point out that governments, well-intentioned or not, have historically struggled to keep this data secure.

It also gives criminals the opportunity to exploit and blackmail people through phishing attempts or fake age verification procedures, which are unfortunately all too common.

Providing personal data can be risky even if you are looking for erotic adult jobs

Over the past few years, the risk of identity theft has been well documented for both widely used and smaller, niche adult sites.

There have been several data breaches on popular porn sites such as Adult Friend Finder and Brazzers, affecting hundreds of millions of people.

Smaller and free sites are not free from dangers either; for example, the data breaches of fetish porn site Luscious in 2019 and MyFreeCams in 2021 exposed millions of users. And those are just the bigger, newsworthy cases.

In 2019, Kaspersky Lab reported that the number of malware targeting online porn account credentials more than doubled in 2018. Researchers who analyzed 22.484 porn sites estimated that 93 percent leaked user data to third parties.

Pornhub argued that age-restriction laws passed by some states caused harm by directing visitors to adult sites with less privacy and less security, putting users at greater risk.

For example, Pornhub's traffic in Louisiana "dropped by about 80 percent" after the age-restriction law was passed.

It shows that few users are willing to provide proof of identity to access their popular platform and that users can "very easily" go to "piracy, illegal or other inappropriate sites that do not require visitors to verify their age".

We have previously written about the extent to which the traffic of porn sites has been reduced by the age control laws:



Pornhub continues to argue that similar laws passed by states like Louisiana fail to effectively enforce themselves and instead force users to make riskier choices when accessing porn.

"Louisiana's law and subsequent state-level laws that copy it have no effective regulation, only civil liability, resulting in a flawed enforcement system and effectively placing the onus of compliance on platform operators," Pornhub's blog said.

As one of the most popular adult platforms in the world, Pornhub would certainly be targeted in case of any problems, while smaller, possibly security-risked, and non-identifying adult sites would not be restricted, according to their opinion.

An Aylo spokesperson shared Similarweb's 2023 data showing that sites that comply with Virginia's age-control laws, such as Pornhub and Airbnb, have seen a significant drop in traffic, while sites that do not comply with the laws have seen a significant increase in traffic.

Similar trends were observed by Google Trends data in the states of Utah and Mississippi, while market shares apparently remained stable in California, where identification is not yet mandatory to access adult sites.

Unfortunately, most sites do not employ adequate trust and security measures to protect the community.

- argues Pornhub.

"Not only have these laws failed to protect minors, they have caused further harm by diverting traffic to sites with little or no trust and security measures in place."

In this way, erotic adult jobs and pornography are also affected by the restrictions, since the number of potential viewers decreases considerably, while the law does not reach its goal: people will continue to watch porn on other, less reliable sites anyway.

According to Pornhub's blog post, device-based age verification would "radically reduce privacy risks and provide regulators with a simple process for enforcement."

In addition, it would "prevent children from accessing material harmful to minors," or at least likely block access by minors on their own devices.

Pornhub has argued for device-based solutions for months while increasingly restricting access in the United States, citing privacy concerns, security risks and restrictions on illegal speech.

However, most states seem to automatically require ID when they pass age verification laws.

An Aylo spokesperson declined to comment on whether any states are aware of plans to implement device-based age verification.

"The safety of our users is our number one priority," and "we always follow the law, but we hope that governments around the world pass laws that truly protect users."

In addition, Pornhub also got into trouble in Europe due to local regulations:



Pornhub's blog urges visitors to pressure regulators to adopt device-based verification methods.

Pornhub's blog notes that implementing device-based control would require "cooperation from manufacturers and operating system providers," which may be one reason why lawmakers, who are otherwise quick to prevent minors from accessing adult content, have been reluctant to consider it. this opportunity.

According to an Aylo spokesperson, "Many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental controls that prevent children from accessing adult content without risking the exposure of sensitive user data."

Other officials may agree with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that the current age-verification laws are reasonable, despite Paxton's March victory against Pornhub in a ruling that those laws do not violate the First Amendment.

According to the ruling, "the age verification requirements are rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in protecting minors from pornographic content."

However, Pornhub continues to show no signs of backing down in its dispute with the states, insisting that "we know that normalizing sex work and sexual expression is an uphill battle, but it is possible."

It's unclear whether Pornhub's revenue has been affected by the ban. Although the adult site reported a significant drop in traffic in at least one state, Pornhub remains the world's most popular source of adult content, according to Statista data from February, and likely has the resources to keep fighting.

"We strongly believe that age verification, when implemented properly, can make the internet safer for everyone," reads Pornhub's blog.

Source: sg.hu