Pornhub Blocks All of Utah From Its Site {update on page 6}
- Thread starter bnew
- Start date
Facts
All that tough Texas talk...and they love panties lol...
But they don't keep your ID. Uploading your ID is basically giving a digital copy to whoever hacks pornhub next.Pornhub acts like they’re the ONLY porn site in existence. Man… if they don’t sit the fukk down somewhere. The Utah residents will just use another website to get off.
I think that providing a valid ID is somewhat excessive and an inconvenience, but you have to provide ID to purchase or use all other adult products. It isn’t a big deal and also provides some sort of accountability.
If this catches on and if they get rid of sec. 230, expect a government digital ID to be required to create an account anywhere on the internet. It'll be the only way sites can shield themselves from liability.
Whose fault is it if Pornhub gets hacked though? That’s their problem. Like any other reputable and respectable website, they better invest in some top tier cybersecurity. If not and they get hacked, then they’ll get sued. If you (not you directly) fear that your love for tranny porn might get exposed because you provided an ID, then that’s just the risk, and it’s Pornhub’s responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen.
That’s the thing. Pornhub wants ZERO accountability. I remember when they had a rampant child p**n problem and they acted like they didn’t even want to take responsibility for it. Now, a state wants to help ensure that children are not consuming porn, and Pornhub acts like it’s the end of the world.
I don’t know, breh. I don’t find myself siding with Pornhub on this one. You have to provide ID to use gambling websites and apps too. This is no different.
No one is worried so much about their love for porn being exposed sans politicians and preachers. The problem is having a photo ID floating the interwebs that can be used to further steal your identity. There are a lot of things you can do with someone's photo ID. As far as them getting hacked, it's just a matter of when. The best cybersecurity setups have been hacked, including Apple's cloud, Bank of America, Experian, it's going to happen. After reading the article, it will be a state sponsored site, and God knows they'll never take any real responsibility for leaked and stolen documents. I think if they took half a beat and worked with a tech team they could find a better way than what they're proposing.
Ineffective, Unconstitutional, and Dangerous: The Problem with Age Verification Mandates – Action Center
action.freespeechcoalition.com
Porn industry group sues over Utah age verification law
An adult entertainment industry group has filed a lawsuit challenging a new Utah law that requires porn websites to implement age verification mechanisms to block minors from accessing sexually explicit materials. The law took effect Wednesday, making Utah the second state to require adult...
apnews.com
Porn industry group sues over Utah age verification law
By SAM METZ yesterday
The Utah State Capitol is shown on March 3, 2023, in Salt Lake City. Adult entertainment industry lobbyists have filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against a new Utah law requiring porn sites implement age verification mechanisms to block minors from accessing sexually explicit materials. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — An adult entertainment industry group filed a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging a new Utah law that requires porn websites to implement age verification mechanisms to block minors from accessing sexually explicit materials.
The law, which took effect Wednesday, made Utah the second state to require adult websites to verify the age of those who want to view their pages — either through an independent contractor or digital ID. Lawmakers likened the requirement to those for alcohol or online gambling and argued that stronger protections were needed to shield kids from pornography, which is ubiquitous online.
The Free Speech Coalition — along with an erotica author and companies that manage adult websites and are party to the suit — argues that Utah’s new law unfairly discriminates against certain kinds of speech, violates the First Amendment rights of porn providers and intrudes on the privacy of individuals who want to view sexually explicit materials. The plaintiffs have asked a federal judge to bar enforcement of the law until their legal challenge is resolved.
They contend that the age verification law “imposes a content-based restriction on protected speech that requires narrow tailoring to serve a compelling state interest.”
It is currently illegal to show children pornography under federal law, however that law is rarely enforced.
Utah’s new law is the conservative state’s latest effort to crack down on access to pornography and dovetails with lawmakers’ other efforts to restrict how children use the internet, including social media sites. It comes less than a year after Louisiana enacted a similar law and as additional states consider such policies as filters or age verification for adult websites.
The Utah law builds off years of anti-porn efforts by the Republican-controlled Legislature, where a majority of lawmakers are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It comes seven years after Utah became the first state to declare pornography a public health crisis and two years after lawmakers passed a measure paving the way to require internet-capable devices be equipped with porn filters for children. Provisions of the law delay it from taking effect unless at least five other states pass similar measures.
The age verification law is facing strong pushback, including from one of the biggest porn sites, Pornhub, which disabled access to its site in Utah earlier this week.
The Free Speech Coalition has filed similar challenges before. In 2002, its case against a federal child pornography statute made landed before the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down provisions for overly interfering with free speech.
Pornhub Sues Texas Over Age Verification Law
The law would require a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” on all porn sites.
www.vice.com
Pornhub Sues Texas Over Age Verification Law
The law would require a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” on all porn sites.
By Samantha Cole
August 11, 2023, 11:12am
GETTY IMAGES
Pornhub, along with several other members and activists in the adult industry are suing Texas to block the state’s impending law that would require age verification to view adult content.
The complaint was filed on August 4 in US District Court for the Western District of Texas, and the law will take effect on September 1 unless the court agrees to block it. Governor Greg Abbott passed HB 1181 into law in June.
The plaintiffs, including Pornhub, adult industry advocacy group Free Speech Coalition, and several other site operators and industry members, claim that the law violates both the Constitution of the United States and the federal Communications Decency Act.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs write that the act employs “the least effective and yet also the most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’ stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors,” and that minors can easily use VPNs or Tor; on-device content filtering would be a better method of restricting access to porn for children, they write. “But such far more effective and far less restrictive means don’t really matter to Texas, whose true aim is not to protect minors but to squelch constitutionally protected free speech that the State disfavors.”
Under the law, porn sites would be required to display a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” on their websites in 14-point font or larger font, in addition to age verification.
“Texas could easily spread its ideological, anti-pornography message through public service announcements and the like without foisting its viewpoint upon others through mandated statements that are a mix of falsehoods, discredited pseudo-science, and baseless accusations,” the complaint says.
In January, Louisiana enacted a law that requires website operators to implement age verification technology if their site consists of 33.3 percent or more material on a site that’s “harmful to minors.” The laws typically define content that’s harmful to minors as appealing to prurient interests, and that consists of “pubic hair, anus, vulva, genitals, or nipple of the female breast; Touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses, or genitals; Sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation; flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act.”
Six states have passed copycat laws since then. Pornhub has blocked anyone visiting from an IP address located in several of those states, including Utah and Virginia, where visitors are met with a plea from adult performer Cherie Deville to contact their representatives.
Texas cannot yet enforce ID checks on porn sites | TechCrunch
Many states have enacted laws in the last year that attempt to keep children away from inappropriate content by age-gating adult websites.
techcrunch.com
Texas cannot yet enforce ID checks on porn sites
Amanda Silberling@asilbwrites / 4:23 PM EDT•August 31, 2023
A Texas judge issued an injunction today to stall the enforcement of an online age verification bill.
The Free Speech Coalition, along with adult video sites like Pornhub, led the legal challenge against Texas’ HB 1181, arguing that the bill violates the First Amendment and infringes on rights guaranteed by Section 230.
“The Court agrees that the state has a legitimate goal in protecting children from sexually explicit material online,” wrote judge David Alan Ezra in the junction. “But that goal, however crucial, does not negate this Court’s burden to ensure that the laws passed in its pursuit comport with established First Amendment doctrine.”
Sponsored by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the bill would make porn sites check users’ IDs to be sure that only adults are accessing sexually explicit materials. The bill would also require that these websites display a “public health warning” in 14-point font or larger, which states that watching pornography can cause mental illness and increase the demand for prostitution and child sexual exploitation.
“Although these warnings carry the label ‘Texas Health and Human Services,’ it appears that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission has not made these findings or announcements,” wrote Judge Ezra.
Many states have enacted laws in the last year that attempt to keep children away from inappropriate content by age-gating adult websites. But digital privacy advocates have voiced concerns for many years about the ways in which online ID verification can backfire.
While HB 1181 does not allow companies or third-party verifiers to retain identifying information about its users, this is difficult to guarantee or enforce.
“Once information is shared to verify age, there’s no way for a website visitor to be certain that the data they’re handing over is not going to be retained and used by the website, or further shared or even sold,” explains the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, a nonprofit advocating for civil liberties online.
When a similar law passed in January in Louisiana, Pornhub conducted age checks via LA Wallet, a state-run digital drivers’ license app. So, in order for an adult to access one of the web’s most popular porn sites, they would have to share their government-issued ID.
Adult sites can be fined for not complying with these laws. Under the bill in Texas, for example, the Attorney General can sue websites for $250,000 each time a minor is found to have accessed sexual material.
Other laws like this have taken effect in Mississippi, Virginia and Utah. Learning from what happened in Louisiana, Pornhub decided to go dark in those states altogether. Instead, users will see a safe-for-work video in which adult actress Cherie DeVille explains why Pornhub doesn’t support age-verification as a way of keeping minors safe online.
“While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users,” she said in the video.
Sites like OnlyFans and Pornhub require adult actors to prove their age and identity to cut down on nonconsensual content and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Still, Pornhub remains at the center of several pre-existing lawsuits regarding CSAM. But other porn sites have even fewer safeguards to ensure that actors aren’t uploading exploitative content.
The judge’s decision in Texas marks a departure from the precedent set by other states. But numerous other online age-verification bills like the Kids Online Safety Act are currently being considered.
“We’re pleased that the Court agreed with our view that HB1181’s true purpose is not to protect young people, but to prevent Texans from enjoying First Amendment protected expression,” said Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Alison Boden in a statement. “The state’s defense of the law was not based in science or technology, but ideology and politics.”
North Carolina and Montana Just Lost Access to Pornhub
As North Carolina and Montana enact new age verification laws effective January 1, residents can’t view sites in Pornhub’s parent company network.
www.404media.co
North Carolina and Montana Just Lost Access to Pornhub
SAMANTHA COLE·JAN 2, 2024 AT 11:22 AM
As North Carolina and Montana enact new age verification laws effective January 1, residents can’t view sites in Pornhub’s parent company network.
MONTANA'S FLAG. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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Happy new year to people in Montana and North Carolina, who just joined a growing list of states that now require identification to view porn, or are blocked from viewing it altogether, as new age verification laws went into effect on January 1.
A year ago, Louisiana paved the way for a wave of age verification laws that target porn sites; eight states have since passed copycat age verification laws of their own. Montana’s SB 544 and North Carolina’s HB 8 are nearly identical to Louisiana’s and other states’ laws. The laws’ text make unsubstantiated claims about the addictive potential of pornography and its apparent harms to viewers’ health. North Carolina’s law was passed as part of unrelated legislation that adds a computer science course to high school graduation requirements.
Rather than try to make its users jump through hoops to view its content, Pornhub’s parent company has blocked viewers in Montana and North Carolina altogether, as it has in other states with similar legislation. Anyone in those states visiting an Aylo site, which includes Pornhub, Redtube, Brazzers, YouPorn, and more, is now met with a video and text message from the network delivered by performer Cherie DeVille, explaining that the site is blocked from view in their state.
“As you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.” DeVille says in a video message.
BRAZZERS' HOMEPAGE AS SEEN IN MONTANA
"The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification," DeVille continues. "Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in your state."
The message is similar to ones visible in other states where similar age verification laws have been enacted in the last year, including Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Pornhub sued Texas in September before its age verification law went into effect, which requires porn sites to add a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” on their websites in 14-point font or larger font, in addition to age verification. A district judge agreed to block the law from being enacted as scheduled on September 1, but Texas asked a Fifth Circuit panel to lift the injunction in October.
Popular Porn Sites Warn Texas Users Porn Will ‘Impair Brain Development’
Sites in Vixen Media Group’s network, including Blacked, Deeper, and Vixen, display a health disclaimer, following a Texas age verification law that would force all adult sites to show the warning to users.
SAMANTHA COLE
Visiting xHamster, another porn tube site, in North Carolina or Montana requires biometric identity verification through third-party service Yoti — the same service the site uses in Utah, following the enactment of the state’s own age verification law.
Critics of these laws say they’re too vague to be useful, and will only have a chilling effect on porn sites that do have good moderation practices, while pushing people to use less responsible sites or use virtual private networks (VPNs) to make it seem like they’re in a different location.
In North Carolina, Senator Amy Galey, who pushed for the law, told local news outlet WRAL that the law "wasn't crafted" to target social media sites. “We’re not going after the risqué and the R rated. But we need some kind of firewall for hard core pornography.” Despite helping pass a law that will change the internet for her constituents, Galey may not realize that Twitter, for example, is absolutely bursting with pornography and requires no identity verification, and Facebook and Instagram send tens of thousands of reports of child sexual abuse material to reporting agencies every year. But these are platforms where politicians and lobbying groups do their recruiting and fundraising, and are rarely targeted in the same way that pornographic sites are.
As was the case after Utah enacted its porn age verification law, in the last 24 hours, Google searches for “VPN” are spiking in Montana and North Carolina, as people look for easy workarounds to the blocks.
Texas sues owners of porn sites Chaturbate, xHamster over age-verification law
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued two more pornography companies that he says are violating a Texas age-verification law.
Texas sues Chaturbate, xHamster owners over age-verification law
By FOX 4 StaffUpdated March 21, 2024 4:16pm CDT
Texas
FOX 4
FOX 4 All Day: March 21, 2024
Dallas-Fort Worth news headlines and the weather forecast for March 21, 2024.Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued two more pornography companies that he says are violating a Texas age-verification law.
Paxton filed suit against Multi Media LLC and Hammy Media, which operate sites including Chaturbate and xHamster.
The suit says the companies are in violation of House Bill 1181, which requires commercial entities that show sexual material to "use reasonable age verification methods […] to verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older."
READMOER: Pornhub disables Texas users access to the site
Companies that do not comply could be fined up to $10,000 per day, $10,000 more per day if the company illegally retains identifying information and $250,000 if a child views pornographic content without proper verification under the law.
Porn companies sued, saying the law violated the First Amendment, but Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upheld the age-verification requirement in a ruling earlier this month.
The attorney general previously sued Aylo, the parent company of the site Porhub.
Pornhub announced they would disable the site in Texas on March 14.
In a statement the company called HB1181 "ineffective, haphazard and dangerous."
Pornhub decided to disable access to their site in Texas until a real solution is offered, they stated. "The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the only effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike is to verify users’ age on their devices and to either deny or allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that verification. We call on all adult sites to comply with the law."
Texas AG Ken Paxton Sues xHamster and Chaturbate AVN
Age verification lawsuits against xHamster and Chaturbate have been filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
avn.com
Texas AG Ken Paxton Sues xHamster and Chaturbate
March 20, 2024 6:15 PM EDT Legal - ByMichael McGrady Jr
Tech
AUSTIN, Texas—Ken Paxton, the far-right attorney general of Texas, has sued the parent companies of adult websites xHamster.com and Chaturbate.com, reports Austin NBC affiliate KXAN.
Paxton filed the complaints in Travis County against Hammy Media and Multi Media for violations of Texas House Bill (HB) 1181, the controversial age verification law that is currently being litigated between porn stakeholders and Paxton's office in a federal district court.
The news about these suits comes weeks after Paxton's office sued Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub.
"Sites like PornHub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children," Paxton said in a post on X.
"We recently secured a major victory against PornHub and other sites that sought to block this law from taking effect," he added. "In Texas, companies cannot get away with showing porn to children. If they don’t want to comply, good riddance."
Paxton argues that Aylo and its affiliated properties violated HB 1181, a "copycat" age-gating law that specifically targets porn websites with requirements to verify that every user from Texas IP addresses is 18 or older.
According to Paxton's office, the Aylo suit is asking the court to impose fines of up to $1.6 million, plus $10,000 per day since September 19, 2023, the day HB 1181 entered force. That sum could surpass $3.2 million for Aylo.
Less than one week ago, on March 14, Aylo geo-blocked the state of Texas due to the ongoing battle over its age verification legislation—thus marking the largest state to date where the company has chosen to block visitors to Pornhub and its other portfolio of sites.
This is a developing story.
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Kansas moves to join Texas and other states in requiring porn sites to verify people's ages
Kansas is poised to require internet pornography sites to verify that visitors are adults. It would join Texas and a handful of other states despite concerns about privacy and how broadly the law could be applied.
apnews.com
Kansas moves to join Texas and other states in requiring porn sites to verify people’s ages
1 of 3 |
Kansas House Judiciary Committee Chair Susan Humphries, R-Wichita, watches an electronic tally vote as the House approves a bill requiring pornography websites to verify the ages of their Kansas visitors, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The measure is likely to be come law and have Kansas joining at least eight other states in requiring age verification. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
2 of 3 |
Kansas state Reps. Jesse Borjon, right, R-Topeka, and Mark Schreiber, left, R-Emporia, confer before the House convenes its daily session, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Both lawmakers support a bill to require pornography websites to verify that Kansas visitors are at least 18. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
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Kansas state Rep. Nick Hoheisel, R-Wichita, watches an electronic tally board in the House as it approves a bill requiring pornography websites to verify the age of Kansas visitors, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The measure is going to Gov. Laura Kelly, and at least eight other states have such laws. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
BY JOHN HANNA AND SEAN MURPHY
Updated 2:54 PM EDT, March 26, 2024
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is poised to require pornography websites to verify visitors are adults, a move that would follow Texas and a handful of other states despite concerns about privacy and how broadly the law could be applied.
The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature passed the proposal Tuesday, sending it to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. The House voted for it 92-31 and the Senate approved it unanimously last month. Kelly hasn’t announced her plans, but she typically signs bills with bipartisan backing, and supporters have enough votes to override a veto anyway.
At least eight states have enacted age-verification laws since 2022 — Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Utah and Virginia, and lawmakers have introduced proposals in more than 20 other states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and an analysis from The Associated Press of data from the Plural bill-tracking service.
Weeks ago, a federal appeals court upheld the Texas age-verification requirement as constitutional and a the Oklahoma House sent a similar measure to the state Senate.
Supporters argue that they’re protecting children from widespread pornography online. Oklahoma Rep. Toni Hasenbeck, a sponsor of the legislation, said pornography is dramatically more available now than when “there might be a sixth-grade boy who would find a Playboy magazine in a ditch somewhere.”
“What is commonplace in our society is for a child to be alone with their digital device in their bedroom,” said Hasenbeck, a Republican representing a rural southwest Oklahoma district.
In Kansas, some critics questioned whether the measure would violate free speech and press rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Last year, that issue was raised in a federal lawsuit over the Texas law from the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry.
A three-judge panel of the conservative, New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Texas’ age-verification requirement did not violate the First Amendment. The judges concluded that such a law can stand as long as a state has a rational basis for it and states have a legitimate interest in blocking minors’ access to pornography.
The Kansas bill would make it a violation of state consumer protection laws for a website to fail to verify that a Kansas visitor is 18 if the website has material “harmful to minors.” The attorney general then could go to court seeking a fine of up to $10,000 for each violation. Parents also could sue for damages of at least $50,000.
Under an existing Kansas criminal law, material is harmful to minors if it involves “nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse.”
But critics of the bill, mostly Democrats, argued that the law could be interpreted broadly enough that LGBTQ+ teenagers could not access information about sexual orientation or gender identity because the legal definition of sexual conduct includes acts of “homosexuality.” That means “being who we are” is defined as harmful to minors, said Rep. Brandon Woodard, who is gay and a Kansas City-area Democrat.
Woodard also said opponents don’t understand “how technology works.” He said people could bypass an age-verification requirement by accessing pornography through the dark web or unregulated social media sites.
Other lawmakers questioned whether the state could prevent websites based outside Kansas from retaining people’s personal information.
“The information used to verify a person’s age could fall into the hands of entities who could use it for fraudulent purposes,” said southeastern Kansas Rep. Ken Collins, one of two Republicans to vote against the bill.
Yet even critics acknowledged parents and other constituents have a strong interest in keeping minors from seeing pornography. Another southeastern Kansas Republican, Rep. Chuck Smith, chided the House because it didn’t approve the bill unanimously, as the Senate did.
“Kids need to be protected,” he said. “Everybody in here knows what pornography is — everybody.”
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aint it possible to see porn on twitter and reddit?
