Child safety bills are reshaping the internet for everyone

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

By the end of this month, porn will get a lot harder to watch in Texas. Instead of clicking a button or entering a date of birth to access Pornhub and other adult sites, users will need to provide photos of their official government-issued ID or use a third-party service to verify their age. It's the result of a new law passed earlier this summer intended to prevent kids from seeing porn online. But it's also part of a broad - and worrying - attempt to age-gate the internet.

Texas may be the biggest state rolling out anti-porn rules, but it's not the first. In the last year alone, more than half a dozen states have passed similar legislation and even more are looking to follow suit. While these rules are focused on adult content,...

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