Porn Site Age Checks Required by Growing Number of States

State laws directing Pornhub and other adult sites to ensure their users are at least 18 years old have triggered a thorny policy debate over whether the use of age verification is feasible to shield children from a broad array of sexual content available online.

Virginia, Mississippi, and Utah are the latest to follow Louisiana’s first-in-the-nation law that requires sites to verify the ages of people accessing content deemed harmful to minors. Pornhub, which operates one of the most visited websites in the US, implemented age checks in Louisiana but has blocked access to the site for users in the other three states, citing concerns over compliance and the effectiveness of the laws.

The new liability for adult sites comes as part of a broader push by lawmakers to put guardrails on the internet as children have increasingly easy access to digital devices at young ages. The porn-focused laws passed nearly unanimously with bipartisan support across statehouses but have raised legal and practical questions about how to implement them.

Similar laws will take effect in Arkansas Aug. 1, with Texas and Montana to follow. In Louisiana, the state attorney general will have new power to enforce the existing age check requirements starting Aug. 1.

Utah state Sen. Todd Weiler (R) said he pushed the adult content law—which faces litigation—to protect children from encountering porn online, with the intent that adult sites would make a good-faith effort to verify the ages of consumers. He said he respects previous First Amendment rulings by the US Supreme Court that recognize adults can legally access pornography.

“I didn’t mean to block anyone’s particular porn site of choice, so I was hoping that there could be a speedy solution to all of this,” Weiler said. “But it appears as of today, there isn’t any speedy solution.”

Porn Access

Proponents of the laws point to the ease of finding content that’s harmful to young viewers. A survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on kids and technology, found most teens had consumed porn online and first encountered it on average at age 12. More than half were exposed accidentally, including from friends or classmates, search engine results, social media, and clicking links, the report said.

Louisiana’s law took effect at the start of this year and prompted nearly identical efforts elsewhere. The law applies to sites where more than a third of content is considered harmful to minors based on depictions or descriptions of sexual acts or genitalia, among other factors.

Those sites must verify users are 18 or older by using the state’s digital driver’s license or a commercial method that relies on government ID or other data. Sites face liability for failing to verify ages or for retaining personal information after an age check.

“This is a very reasonable way that we can protect children more,” said Louisiana state Rep. Laurie Schlegel (R), a licensed professional counselor who sponsored the measure. Schlegel said she was inspired by singer Billie Eilish publicly sharing the negative consequences she faced from viewing porn as a child.

Louisiana’s existing digital ID helped Schlegel determine the age check law was feasible and would protect privacy, she said. The verification tells a site if a user is at least 18 without transmitting other personal data.

Elsewhere, Utah is in talks with the same company that partners with Louisiana to provide a similar age check method, Weiler said. That option could make it easier to comply with the new adult content requirements, but the law allows for a variety of verification methods, he said.

In Virginia, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D) called out the governor on social media for leaving age verification to private companies rather than provide a state option after Pornhub locked the site in Virginia following the state’s new law. Lucas voted for the measure but said it was the executive branch’s job to create a system for age verification—a notion refuted by an aide for Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R).

Montana state Sen. Willis Curdy (D), who pushed the adult content law taking effect Jan. 1, said he’s watching how the measures play out. It’s common for a law to need tweaking after it’s implemented, he said.

“You’ve got to look at it and see how it’s working and then go from there,” he said.

Traffic Drops

Representatives of the porn industry and other adult businesses say they also want to keep kids off their sites, but raise concerns with the age check laws. Most sites in states where those laws are in effect are blocking users or ignoring the requirements, while a few are trying to comply, said Mike Stabile, director of public affairs for the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult industry.

Stabile noted sites incur costs to verify user ages and consumers are hesitant to provide the necessary information. The verification process can prove complicated for people who are often looking at adult content on a phone, in private, and may be fearful of being associated with stigmatized content, he said.

Device-level filters already allow parents to block adult sites, Stabile said. The state laws also fail to address adult content found on social media and other sites, or the ease of circumventing age checks using a virtual private network, he said.

Pornhub’s traffic dropped by 80% when the Louisiana law went into effect and the site required digital identification for access, according to a site spokesperson. The site was acquired in March by a private equity firm based in Ottawa.

Pornhub said in a statement that it supports age verification if it preserves user privacy and makes the internet safer for everyone, but implementation in Louisiana drove the site to shut off its site to users in states with similar laws.

“These people did not stop looking for porn,” the company said in a statement. “They just migrated to other corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.”

Adult site xHamster said in a statement that the approach of the new state laws “does not appear to be a sustainable solution” and that device-level age verification would be more viable than placing the onus on individual websites. xHamster has implemented age-verification measures on a voluntary basis in applicable states and has seen a steady loss in audience, the statement said.

Constitutional Concerns

Court challenges may impact the future of state age verification laws. The Free Speech Coalition is leading plaintiffs suing Louisiana and Utah over their requirements.

The federal suits argue the laws violate the First Amendment with content-based restrictions and violate the Fourteenth Amendment by being overly vague. The coalition argues there are less restrictive means of achieving the goals of the laws.

Plaintiffs argue the laws amount to an invasion of privacy into private sexual conduct. While an in-person visit to an adult bookstore comes with a brief date-of-birth check, online age verification “invites the risk, real or reasonably perceived, that the viewer’s digital ‘fingerprint’ will be left on the site—and not just on the website’s ‘front door,’ but on every bit of digital content examined,” the complaints allege.

Age-check providers weighing in on the cases contend age verification is a minimal burden on consumers and that their technology safeguards personal information. Providers do not create new databases of personal information, said Iain Corby executive director of The Age Verification Providers Association.

“The whole industry is designed to guarantee your privacy,” he said.

Such verification is already happening online for other age-restricted activities that include gambling or purchasing wine, so it should be feasible for porn sites, Weiler said.

“Now, there is a good argument to say well, that’s interesting, but you know, those other things are not protected by the First Amendment and porn is,” he said. “So I think that’s where the rub is and that’s the decision that the court’s going to have to make.”