The Adult Site Pornhub Has Almost Fled the Entirety of the South

The adult website known as Pornhub has now abandoned 13 states thanks to laws requiring age verification on sites like it before use. 

According to the New York Post, in mid-December, the new Florida law HB3 protects minors from accessing pornography on one of America’s most popular pornography distributors by requiring proof of ID before you can gain access. In response, Pornhub threw a tantrum and said that, rather than comply with the laws, it would just restrict access to its entire site within the state. 

If you try to access the site now, you’ll be greeted with a message: 

“Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB?,” the smut sellers wrote in disbelief. “As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. You’ll be required to prove you are 18 years or older such as by uploading your government ID for every adult content website you’d like to access.”

The excuse Pornhub is using is that they don’t want you to have to do this because it puts your privacy at risk, however, Republicans are more concerned about protecting minors and their development. Pornhub claims that there are no negative effects on the brain when it comes to porn, including on minors, which is scientifically proven to be untrue as it does affect neural pathways, impulse control, and dopamine desensitization. 

The fact that Pornhub was trying to argue that it doesn’t affect minors tells you all you need to know anyway. The moment they made that argument is the moment they lost the entire thing. 

Not that there aren’t efforts to stop states like Florida. As reported by the Post, Florida is being sued by multiple organizations in order to protect the porn: 

The law is considered by legal experts to be broad and sweeping and is facing legal challenges.

Florida is being sued in US District Court by Free Speech Coalition, INC., Deep Connection Technologies, INC., JFF Publications, LLC, Barry Chase, Esq, and PHE INC.

That lawsuit claims that HB3 is just the newest in a wave of laws that unconstitutionally seek to ban speech and harps on the “murky definition of ‘material harmful to minors.’”

“Despite the claims of the proponents, [the law] is not the same as showing ID at a liquor store,” Alison Boden, executive director of Free Speech Coalition wrote in a statement.

“It is invasive and carries significant risk to privacy,” Boden added.

The Free Speech Coalition is a trade association for the adult entertainment industry.

The fight to keep the porn flowing even crept into the 2024 election, as the porn industry attempted to back Democrats. Porn sites began running ads in swing states in an attempt to get people to fight back against an “ultra-conservative agenda” and said the attack on porn was “rooted in religious conservatism, fearmongering, and the suppression of women’s rights.” 

(READ: Democrats Now Hoping Porn Addiction Will Save Kamala Harris… No Really)

But it seems this is only pushing the states’ victory against pornography. As it stands, almost the entirety of the south requires age verification. These 13 states are Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. 

Keep in mind that these states did not ban porn, they simply required porn sites to implement age-verification on their sites. The porn sites themselves are blocking people in the states, and if they’d rather do that than help make minors safer, then that should tell you what their true intentions are. 

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