The Pornhub Ban Across the U.S. South

January 22, 2025

It’s nonsensical and draconian, and now, it’s reality: Pornhub is inaccessible in 16 U.S. states due to age-verification laws. Generally, as James Factora writes, such laws “force sites containing ‘material harmful to minors’” to “utilize age verification” and limit users’ access to those sites. With the definition of “harmful” up for debate – though under any definition, it’s doubtful that sexually explicit material would qualify as such – sites are erring on the side of legal caution. Rather than risk liability, Pornhub made a decision: it chose to “pull access entirely in states that have enacted restrictive age verification laws.”

Age-verification laws don’t just pose a danger to the sites they regulate; obviously, of grave concern is the potential impact on users. For those who could theoretically “pass” the age-verification test, there’s a serious privacy threat. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes, common age-verification requirements like providing a government ID is highly problematic. Sharing your ID carries the potential that user data could be “be retained and used by the website, or further shared or even sold.” Not to mention the fact that millions of U.S. residents lack any form of government ID.

We at the Woodhull Freedom Foundation join Factora, EFF, and other advocates in strongly opposing age-verification laws as they exist today. Our right to freedom of speech has always been inextricable from our right to sexual freedom, but recent age verification laws are making it abundantly clear.