Pornhub to block access in another US state from January 1

Floridians will no longer be able to access the most popular porn site next year due to a row about age verification laws.

Pornhub will geo-block people in the sunshine state from accessing its website from January 1, like it has done for a dozen other states.

The move is a response to a new bill in Florida that requires adult websites to verify the age of people who use their sites, by using government-issued IDs or similar documentation.

Pornhub said it does not want minors accessing its site, but believes the law puts 'everybody's privacy at risk.'

The recent announcement brings the total number of blocked states to 13: Kentucky, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, Montana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas and Utah.

When users in the banned states attempt to access Pornhub they will see '403 - This state is not whitelisted.'

Americans who visit Pornhub in the meantime are being met with ads such as: 'You will lose access to Pornhub in 14 days.

'Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver's license before you can access Pornhub. As crazy as that sounds, it's true.'

DeSantis signed the bill in March, with the main focus of banning children under the age of 14 from having social media accounts, a move he claims will give parents more power to 'protect' their kids, but also to stop them from accessing adult material.

Democrats objected to DeSantis' measures, saying they infringed on the constitutional rights of minors.

Alison Boden, executive director of Free Speech Coalition, in a statement, said that while the law protects minors, it also creates 'a substantial burden on adults who want to access legal sites without fear of surveillance.'

'Despite the claims of the proponents, (the law) is not the same as showing an ID at a liquor store. It is invasive and carries significant risk to privacy,' she added.

Pornhub's parent company Aylo has noted that it publicly supports age verification, but said that 'the way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.'

Aylo's decision to block these states stems from privacy concerns. People would have to upload a government-issued ID to prove they are over 18,’ The Verge reported

'Since age verification software requires users to hand over extremely sensitive information, it opens the door for the risk of data breaches,' Pornhub stated.

'Whether or not your intentions are good, governments have historically struggled to secure this data.

'It also creates an opportunity for criminals to exploit and extort people through phishing attempts or fake AV processes, an unfortunate and all too common practice.'

Kentucky lost access on June 10, while Indiana, Idaho and Kansas were blocked on June 28th and Nebraska on July 17th.

Texas was blocked in March after an appeals court upheld an age verification law passed in 2023.

Residents of the Lone Star State trying to access Pornhub were also greeted with a message: 'As you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website.

'Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas's stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.'

Arkansas' law, which would have required parental consent for children to create new social media accounts, was struck down by a federal judge in March and a lawsuit challenging the Louisiana law is pending.

Opponents have argued that age verification laws for adult websites not only infringe upon free speech, but also threaten digital privacy because it's impossible to ensure that websites don't retain user identification data.

Such laws have been deemed as surveillance systems by civil liberty organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The group warned these requirements could lead to impersonation schemes and other data theft.

'Once information is shared to verify age, there’s no way for a website visitor to be certain that the data they’re handing over is not going to be retained and used by the website, or further shared or even sold,' Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote last year.