Landry Rhodes
By Landry Rhodes
In the wake of Texas’ sweeping new restrictions on adult entertainment websites, many people are facing difficulty and frustration in adjusting to the shutdown of many pornographic websites.
Last year, Pornhub sued the state of Texas to block enforcement of a HB 1181, a state law passed in June 2023 that requires websites that host “sexual materials harmful to minors” to institute age-verification measures and display health warnings claiming pornography is proven to harm brain development. However, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the law, citing a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision preventing the sale of pornography to minors. The law is slated to go into effect in August.
Ahead of the implementation, Pornhub and other adult film websites shut down service in Texas, after recent laws triggered similar action in seven other states including Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
“Unfortunately the Texas law for age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.” said Alex Kekesi, vice president of brand and community at Aylo, Pornhub’s Canadian-based parent company. “Not only will it not actually protect children, it will inevitably reduce content creators’ ability to post and distribute legal adult content and directly impact their ability to share the artistic messages they want to convey with it,”
Following the shutdown, google searches for “how to watch porn in Texas” increased by over 3500%, and many other searches such as “porn alternative” and “free vpn Texas” are up by over 5000%, with Austin being one of the highest trending cities for these searches. Many users expressed concerns that other sites will either shut down services or risk sharing personal details with a third party company.
There is a precedent of people lacking trust in tying their personal information with data from pornographic websites. In 2019, over a million users at Lucious.net had personal information exposed in a data leak, including usernames, email addresses, and even location data. A study from the same year from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University revealed that 93% of pornographic websites leak data to third-party sellers through the use of cookies. Many people have raised concern that the already uneasy security of porn sites would not be trusted with information such as drivers licenses.
Currently, the restrictions remain in place, and most of the top pornographic websites display messages stating that services are blocked in Texas “because your government sucks.” Aylo and other companies and trade groups are reviewing their legal options and “will continue to appeal through all available judicial recourse to recognize that this law is unconstitutional.”
Ann Parker
