Pornhub has blocked access to its website in Alabama in response to a state law that goes into effect Tuesday requiring adult sites to verify its users’ ages.
Users who visit Pornhub from Alabama are met with a message explaining why the site has gone dark in the state.
“As you may know, your elected officials in Alabama are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” the message reads. “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”
The Alabama law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in April, requires adult websites to use “a reasonable age-verification method” to verify its users are old enough to view pornography. The legislation mimics laws passed in other conservative states, including Texas’, which is being challenged and is set to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
It also mandates porn sites display several warnings from Alabama Health and Human Services on the sites’ landing pages, including “Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function”; “Exposure to this content is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.”; and “Pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation, and child pornography.”
Instead of complying with the state law, Pornhub is blocking access to its website from within Alabama.
Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, said in a statement to AL.com that while it agrees with the state’s effort to ensure children do not access pornography, Alabama’s methods for doing so are ineffective.
“The best solution to make the internet safer, preserve user privacy, and prevent children from accessing adult content is performing age verification at the source: on the device,” Aylo said. “The technology to accomplish this exists today. What is required is the political and social will to make it happen. We are eager to be part of this solution and are happy to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution. In addition, many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental control features that can prevent children from accessing adult content without risking the disclosure of sensitive user data.”
The company said user safety “is our number one concern.
“We will always comply with the law,” Aylo said, “but we hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.”
Alabama’s law goes into effect Oct. 1.
