Anti-Porn Clusterfucks: Pornhub Blocks Texas, Indiana Adopts Age Verification
What a day. Texas is now the most populated U.S. state to be geo-blocked by Aylo, the parent company of the popular adult tube site Pornhub.com. With a population of barely over 29.5 million people, residents of the Lone Star State must use a VPN to view porn on Aylo's network of free and premium websites.
The geo-block comes after the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Texas age verification law targeting pornography was constitutional. The federal case was brought by Aylo, the parent companies of other adult websites, and the Free Speech Coalition.
Despite the Fifth Circuit completely overlooking decades of Supreme Court precedent indicating that any sort of age verification measure infringes on First Amendment rights, the conservative judges, 2-1, powered through. As Mike Masnick noted in his column on the decision, Judge Patrick Higginbotham - in dissent from the two other judges of the panel - rightfully pointed out that First Amendment protections aren't thrown out just because Texas tries to be the nanny state. Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra initially ruled the Texas age verification law, House Bill 1181, unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction to block the law. Texas won on appeal. Litigation is still ongoing. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, also fileda lawsuit against Pornhub in Travis County courts alleging violations of House Bill 1181, and seeks millions in damages.
A few states away, Indiana just adopted an age verification law. Senate Bill 17, which was proposed by state Sen. Mike Bohacek of Michiana Shores and is set to enter force on July 1, 2024.I wrote for Techdirt about Senate Bill 17 because an early version of the bill carried with it criminal penalties for violators of the age verification requirement. Luckily, the bill was amended to drop those penalties. Still, SB 17 is a very slippery slope for Hoosiers and the United States in general. The Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union called the bill an unconstitutional violationagainst adults.
The legal environment pertaining to age verification and free speech online is now more fraught than ever. Developments like these reveal an ongoing civil liberties clusterfuck instigated by the anti-pornography lobby in the name of protecting" minors. In much of my previous work for Techdirt and for other publishers, I have highlighted how efforts to restrict or even ban legal pornography in the U.S. are steeped in the far-right Christian nationalism that has gripped the Republican Party. Don't forget about Project 2025. This group openly wants to ban porn and imprison those whom they deem pornographers."
To hear some people talk about it, anyone having anything to do with adult content should be imprisoned. This is why, as a journalist and a commentator, I keep writing about anti-porn clusterfucks like Aylo bowing to Texas or any other state controlled by politicians declaring victory" against porn.
The First Amendment still exists. Case law still exists. Hopefully, the likes of Texas and Indiana - really all of the states under the yoke of authoritarian anti-porn, pro-censorship laws - are finally reminded that this type of paternalistic meddling is un-American.
Michael McGrady covers the legal and tech side of the online porn business, among other topics.