Why Pornhub disabled services in Texas under House Bill 1181

Internet users in more than half a dozen states no longer can access Pornhub, a pornography website, after it disabled its site over objections to age-verification laws.

Pornhub disabled access in Texas on Thursday after a legal tangle with the state over House Bill 1181, which was signed into law in June. Here are a few things to know about the bill and the disabled service.

What is House Bill 1181?

The law, which went into effect Sept. 1, requires commercial entities publishing sexually explicit or pornographic material to verify that users are over 18. Sites working to comply with the law would have to ask for government-issued identification, digital identification or transactional data from site visitors to make sure they are not minors.

HB1181 would ask sites hosting explicit material to show a substance abuse and mental health helpline phone number and three 14-point-or-larger notices saying the following:

“Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses and weakens brain function.

“Exposure to this content is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development and other emotional and mental illnesses.

“Pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation and child pornography.”

What happens if a porn site does not comply?

Companies that violate the law’s age-verification requirements can be fined up to $10,000 per day, and the same fine applies per instance if the company retains identifying information. Fines can reach as high as $250,000 if at least one minor is exposed to pornography tied to a lack of compliance with the law.

Why doesn’t Pornhub comply with HB1181?

In a message that comes up whenever Texas users attempt to open the site, Pornhub wrote that the law limits adults’ ability to access the material. The site also wrote the law is “employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.”

The statement went on to say that the law will put the privacy of users at risk and that the burden of finding users’ ages should be on the device they are using instead of the websites they visit.

What led up to Pornhub canceling its service?

Pornography sites and advocates partnered to sue the state in the summer of 2023. The group, which included more than a dozen businesses, claimed that HB1181 targets the free speech of “internet platforms and individuals,” violating the Constitution and the federal Communications Decency Act.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit against Aylo Global Entertainment Inc. and Aylo USA Inc., alleging that the companies published and distributed sexually explicit material through websites like Pornhub without complying with the law.

While a federal judge ruled in their favor, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a temporary injunction blocking the implementation of the bill in November.

On Thursday, Pornhub disabled its site in Texas. Now, users can see only the statement outlining the site’s disagreement with the law.

“In Texas, companies cannot get away with showing porn to children. If they don’t want to comply, good riddance,” Paxton wrote in a post on X, a social media site formerly known as Twitter.

Has this happened in other states?

Pornhub has pulled back services in seven states because of age-verification laws, including Utah, Arkansas and North Carolina, over concerns that the laws “jeopardize user safety and privacy.”

Will this keep minors safe?

According to Pornhub, no. When Louisiana passed

a similar age-verification law in 2023, traffic to Pornhub dropped by around 80% in the state. A news statement from the company said that few companies complied with the rules because the law did not have a regulator.

“Consequently, traffic to Pornhub dropped by approximately 80% in Louisiana, but we know that people didn’t stop consuming porn overnight because of this new law. They just very easily moved to pirate, illegal, or other non-compliant sites that don’t ask visitors to verify their age,” the statement said.

The statement went on to say that few other sites meet the trust and safety measures the company uses to protect creators and users.

“Sites like Pornhub are on the run,” Paxton said in his recent post to X.“Texas has a right to protect its children from the detrimental effects of pornographic content,” he said in a November statement. “As new technology makes harmful content more accessible than ever, we must make every effort to defend those who are most vulnerable.”