Pornhub sues Texas over age verification law
Christopher Hutton
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Pornhub sued Texas over a law requiring online platforms to verify users’ ages before allowing them access to pornography, an act that it claimed violates the First Amendment.
A coalition of activists and businesses from the pornographic business, including Pornhub and the Free Speech Coalition, filed a suit in the Western District of Texas on Aug. 4. The coalition asked that the court block H.B. 1181, Texas’s newly passed age verification law, from going into effect on Sept. 1. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) signed the legislation into law on June 15. Texas is one of the latest states to pass an age verification law for pornographic websites, but it is the first state to be legally targeted by the industry for the restrictions.
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The age verification method is the “least effective and yet also the most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors,” the coalition argued in the suit, noting that minors could easily use a virtual private network to access the websites to evade the age verification if they wanted.
The suit alleged that Texas violated multiple constitutional rights, including a user’s First Amendment right to free speech, the requirement for due process as listed in the 14th Amendment, and the excessive fines clause in the Eighth Amendment. The coalition also claimed that the websites are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a crucial part of the law related to the internet that protects platforms from being held accountable for content posted by users.
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H.B. 1181 requires adult websites to display a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” in 14-point font alongside requiring users to verify their age. This warning states, “Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function.”
Texas is not the first state to adopt age verification requirements. Louisiana implemented age restrictions early in January, requiring users to provide a copy of a government-issued ID before being allowed access to pornographic websites. Several other states passed copycat bills, including Virginia, Mississippi, Utah, Arkansas, and Montana.