Pornhub Boycott of Texas Affects Both Fans and Performers

It’s Not Just the State’s Subscribers Who Can’t Access Their Accounts

In June 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbot signed HB 1181 into law. In August, the law was challenged by the Free Speech Coalition, Pornhub, and others on the basis of First Amendment violations and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In September, the law went into effect. Now any adult site accessible to the state’s residents must both require proof of age and display a long health warning that claims porn is “potentially biologically addictive” and has been “proven to harm human brain development.” In March 2024, Pornhub decided to stop doing business with the state of Texas and blocked access to its residents. It has done likewise to the state of Arkansas.

Kentucky and Kansas are considering similar legislation. Mississippi, Arkansas, Indiana, Virginia, Montana, and Utah have already approved their own. More than 20 other states have proposals before them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Two things happened after Pornhub became inaccessible in Texas, one expected and one unexpected. Searches for porn archive alternatives, ways to watch porn in Texas, and information about VPN services. Searches for the latter increased by 400 percent. Since Ken Paxton, the state’s Attorney General, has sued Pornhub’s parent company, Canadian-based Aylo, its other properties, Brazzers, Reality Kings, and YouPorn are also blocked to Texas internet users. Visitors are greeted with an explanation that explains the situation and says that “the Texas law for age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.” Paxton intends to sue Chaturbate and Xhamster next.

Image: Screencap of Google Trends Showing VPN Search Interest in Texas at 100. (April 4, 2024)

But it isn’t just subscribers to those sites who are struggling to see what they’ve paid for. Texas state content creators are also scrambling to find ways to get through the digital barrier between them and the way they earn money to pay their bills. Unable to upload new content, Lone Star porn stars have had to send messages to support in hopes of refreshing their account with new Chaturbate livestreams and the like.

KBTX 3 Television reports that Alex Kekesis, vice president of brand and community at Aylo, opined that the law “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.”

He isn’t wrong. According to Chron.com, so many content providers have reached out to Pornhub support that it is overloaded. Models are being asked to resubmit photos of themselves holding their username, the date, and the word “Pornhub” for verification.

The idea of age-verification is not, in itself, offensive to performers or Aylo. Mashable received a statement from Kekesis assuring that “Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must ensure minors do not access content intended for adults and preserve user safety and privacy. Instead, he contends that verifying user ages at the point of access, such as the laptop, tablet, or mobile phone, is “the real solution.”

Performers, including Ava Addams, would like to see some kind of age verification filtering, as well. She does not, however, think it should be limited to porn sites. Instead, Addams proposes that all social media sites should confirm that users are of legal age. After all, as she points out, performers must constantly verify their age and even some of the most attentive and involved parents have discovered that motivated offspring can find ways around parental blocks.