Pornhub is blocking access for Arizonans after the state passed a law requiring rigorous age-verification measures — arguing people who can’t get access to the explicit site will simply go to “darker corners of the internet” for their fix.
The Montreal-based porn giant — one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Earth — argued Arizona’s new measures were “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous” and would end up doing more harm than good.
Arizona’s new law comes into effect on Friday, and requires users to prove they are 18 years or older by submitting either a government ID, a credit card or uploading a photo of themselves — which explicit websites will then be required to delete.
Those requirements apply to websites that have at least 30% explicit content, which the law describes as “harmful to minors,” AZ Central reported.
But Pornhub thinks the law’s logic is asinine, and that people looking for porn who don’t want to comply will simply plumb the depths of the internet to find less regulated — and possibly dangerous — websites for explicit content.
“This is not speculation. We have seen how this scenario plays out in the United States,” Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, said in a statement obtained by Fox 10.
“In Louisiana, Pornhub was one of the few sites to comply with the new law,” Aylo said, explaining that traffic in the state dropped by 80% when it rolled out the verification measures.
“These people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to darker 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,” the company added.
“In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children,” Aylo added, explaining that it supported age verification, but felt it should be handled on users’ devices and not on websites.
Laws similar to Arizona’s have previously passed in two dozen states, and Pornhub has blocked access in 21 of them for the same arguments — including Florida, Virginia, Kansas, both Carolinas, Montana, Tennessee and others, according to CBS News.
But Arizona lawmakers were unmoved by Pornhub’s protests and instead lauded its passing.
“I have four kids. The way they grow up is very important to me,” said the bill’s author, State Rep. Nick Kupper (R). “Both sides of the aisle agree that pornography is harmful to minors.”
Arizona’s new law also imposes fines of up $10,000 for every day a website doesn’t have age verification measures in place, and up to $250,000 in fines payable to parents whose kids access sites without measures.
Age-verification laws have faced legal battles in other states, with Texas’ regulation notably going all the way to the US Supreme Court before being upheld.
“The statute advances the State’s important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.
Read the full article here
