ORLANDO, Fla. – An adult content site says it will no longer be available in Florida when a law goes into effect in January.
Floridians looking to gain access to the site Pornhub are greeted with a message in all caps this week.
“YOU WILL LOSE ACCCESS TO PORNHUB IN 13 DAYS,” the site read on Wednesday.
It goes on to say, “Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB? As Crazy as it sounds, it’s true.”
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Pornhub’s parent company, Alyo, told News 6 they are proactively restricting access to users in the state. The site references the Online Protection for Minors, or HB3, law that goes into effect Jan.1, 2025.
The bill that Gov. Ron Desantis signed in March is focused on limiting children’s access to social media platforms. It also requires pornographic or sexually explicit websites to use age verification to prevent minors from accessing sites that are inappropriate for children. To do this, sites would have to use an official form of identification, something Pornhub is not in favor of.
On their site, they said that they do not want minors accessing their site, but “putting everybody’s privacy at risk won’t achieve that.”
Alyo sent the following statement to News 6.
“First, to be clear, Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy, and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults. Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.”
Alyo
Under the bill:
- Children under 14 cannot have social media accounts
- Minors 14 or 15 years of age can have social media accounts only with parental permission
- Unless a parent or guardian has provided consent, social media platforms must terminate any accounts held by someone 14 or 15 years old
- Social media platforms must use a third-party verification method on new accounts
- Any personal information used in that age verification process cannot be saved and they must protect any identifying information used to verify age from illegal access
- Any website that has “material harmful to minors” to verify that all users are 18 or older
- Social media platforms can face civil actions for violating the bill which could include $50,000 per violation and attorney fees and court costs
Alyo said it would prefer to have device-based verification, as opposed to what the state has outlined.
“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. 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,” they said. “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.”
This week, the Free Speech Coalition, an advocacy organization for the adult entertainment industry, filed a lawsuit against HB3, calling it unconstitutional.
“I think there are better solutions that we can get to once we start talking with legislators about how to better keep minors from accessing adult content. But I think that asking Floridians to upload an I.D. and scan a face or undergo a background check in order to access legal content is a violation of their First Amendment rights,” Free Speech Coalition Director of Public Policy Mike Stabile said. “We should be able to go on and look at the internet without having to sacrifice that information.”
“Is [device based age verification] something that the coalition would be for when it comes to having this process in place?” News 6 Reporter Stephanie Rodriguez asked.
“I think that a device-based format is more effective and is less restrictive of adults access,” Stabile said. “I think that what people don’t realize is that on their phone, it takes about 30s to turn on an adult filter, and it will block all of the sites that you want to block. This isn’t about asking parents or manufacturers to do some huge amount of work or constantly monitor their kids’ devices.”
Pornhub has restricted access to its site in other states that have passed similar laws. Right now, the collation is in the legal process for its lawsuit against an age verification law in Texas. That matter is slated to go before the Supreme Court in January.
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