Pornhub is blocked in Texas. Is Florida next?
DeSantis signs bill allowing teens to work more hours weekly
Texans this week joined a multitude of other states’ residents in getting blocked from Pornhub, the nation’s most popular pornographic website.
Could Floridians be next?
Texas and a growing number of states have passed laws requiring age verification to watch porn. Pornhub has responded by restricting access in most of them.
The Florida Legislature recently approved a bill that too requires age verification.
It’s expected to be signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and take effect at the start of 2025, if it survives expected legal challenges.
When asked what its Florida plans were, a Pornhub spokesperson on Friday declined to “discuss the hypothetical scenario.”
But Aylo, the parent company of the website, previously told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that such laws create data privacy issues.
“Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy,” a spokesperson said in a late January email, when Florida’s
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure into law Friday that originally drew criticism during this year’s legislative session and was dubbed a “child labor” bill by opponents.
The final version DeSantis signed, however, was watered down by a Senate amendment, which satisfied labor advocates.
While the first iterations of Employment and Curfew of Minors (HB 49) allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to work more than 40 hours a week and more than eight hours a day without breaks, the final result says legislation had just started moving through the Capitol.
The company said the “only” solution is to require “age verification at the source: on the device.”
Florida’s bill (HB 3) states that a porn website “must use either anonymous age verification or standard age verification to verify that the age of a person attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older and prevent access to the material by a person younger than 18 years of age.” It has to offer both verification 16-and 17-year-olds can’t work more than 30 hours a week unless they obtain parental permission. Home schoolers and virtual school students, however, do not need parental permission.
The law also prohibits 16- and 17year-olds from working more than eight hours if they have school the next day, unless it’s a Sunday or a holiday. The law requires a 30-minute break every four hours if the minor has a shift longer than eight hours. The effective date is July 1.
On the last day of session in early March, it was was one of two bills with late-filed amendments that stalled the adjournment of the 2024 legislative session, as lawmakers options but does not offer details about what the “anonymous age verification” would look like.
It also requires that the verification be done by a third-party that can’t keep personal identifying information.
Lawmakers promoted the age verification measure as a way to protect children from explicit content, and it received broad bipartisan support.
“This is a bill that lets kids be kids,” said Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, a bill sponsor. squabbled over preemption measures for municipalities.
The other bill, Employment Regulations (HB 433), has not yet been delivered to the governor’s office.
HB 49 was one of 25 other bills DeSantis signed Friday, including other measures that allow the governor to send the Florida State Guard out of state; permanently outlaw the drug tianeptine, also known as “gas station heroin;” and require all Florida inmates in the state prison system to submit DNA samples if they don’t already have them on file.
Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agoni lessan@gannett.com.
Some First Amendment advocates, though, warn that it clashes with the free speech.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, for example, says it imposes a “chilling burden” on accessing “protected online speech” that would be overturned in the courts.
How a lawsuit would go against Florida’s legislation, which also includes social media restrictions for minors, is unclear. But just last week, a federal appeals court upheld Texas’ law, prompting Pornhub’s decision.
“We hope Florida legislators will ultimately put into place a solution with respect to age verification that actually protects user safety and privacy,” the company’s Friday statement reads. “As currently written, the legislation does the opposite. To be clear, we have publicly supported age verification for years. We just want a solution that enhances safety for children and adults, and also protects the security and privacy of those on the internet.”
USA TODAY contributed to this story. This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners.
USA TODAY Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com.