Back in 2024, searches spiked for VPN backdoors to sites like Pornhub or for guidance on accessing adult content, despite the legal ban. Some sites have implemented age verification procedures – requiring users to go through a third party for a face scan and an ID – while others, like Pornhub, have become inaccessible in the Lone Star State.
Others, however, have skirted the new legal requirements, and this is the point Pornhub is trying to make.
“None of the age verification laws that have been passed in any of your jurisdictions is working or can effectively be enforced,” Pornhub officials wrote in an open letter to lawmakers. “For example, in Texas, where age verification was introduced in September 2023, a simple online search showed 9 out of the top 10 search results for ‘free porn’ had no age verification at all.”
The law, passed in 2023 and implemented in 2024 after a series of court battles, requires age-verification protocols for sites hosting pornography. But Pornhub, one of the largest companies affected by this ban, says the law is not having the impact it was intended to have.
The porn company says the liability should fall on device manufacturers, especially Apple, Google, and Microsoft, because they produce 97% of all mobile phone operating systems. They say parental controls and blocks should be enabled by default, preventing children from accessing adult content immediately rather than relying on each website to carry the burden of censorship.
There’s an argument, according to Pornhub, that teenagers and minors continue to access adult material through social media – a place many turned to after the statewide restrictions – or through smaller sites that appear in search results and remain untouched by state regulators.
Over the course of a year or so after the law first took effect, free speech advocates and porn distributors took Texas to task over the legislation’s constitutionality. Ultimately, the issue made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of lawmakers in a 6-3 decision.
“Let me put this simply: these companies do not have a right to expose children to pornography,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said back in November 2024. “Texas has a clear interest in protecting children, and we have been successful defending this commonsense age verification law against a powerful global industry.”
Pornhub, however, says minors continue to access pornography online, as a slew of new sites without monitoring appear on popular search pages. In fact, the Free Speech Coalition, behind the Supreme Court lawsuit, says less than 5% of people seeking free porn online actually complete age verification. Instead, they say, these users will back out and find a site without the requirement.
Further, Pornhub officials say these verification systems, administered by third parties, pose privacy risks, storing the faces and identities of countless adults.
“We can no longer accept laws that create the appearance of action while failing to address the challenge of keeping kids safe online,” the open letter from Pornhub to political officials states. “It is particularly concerning when these laws drive regulated business out of your jurisdictions and aid in creating a lush market for bad actors online, when a viable solution exists today.”