One of the world’s largest pornography websites plans to close down in a further five states that are introducing robust age-verification measures into law.
From July, Pornhub will be unavailable in Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky and Nebraska. It has already withdrawn from several states over the past year because they require users to submit their age using identification such as a driving licence.
When Pornhub did comply with Louisiana’s age-verification measures last year, its website traffic plummeted by 80 per cent.
‘Great development’
Pornhub claims that it only opposes certain age-verification methods due to privacy concerns, but it treated the laws as a barrier to “normalising sex work and sexual expression”.
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen called the new protections “a great development for the protection of our kids, culture, and values”.
“Having one fewer outlet trying to sexualise their childhood is a good thing for their futures and a good thing for Nebraska.”
Indiana’s Attorney General Todd Rokita added: “What this comes down to is that they don’t want to spend the money to protect kids. Because of that, they are part of the problem, they are part of the problem for why our kids are so corrupted.”
Online Safety Act
Last year, the UK Government’s Online Safety Bill became law after receiving Royal Assent.
Ofcom is due to gradually implement the Act’s measures, which require both social media and pornography websites to implement age-verification measures that are “highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a particular user is a child”.
Earlier that year, England’s Children’s Commissioner’s Office found that the average age a child first sees pornography is 13, with half of those surveyed admitting they had watched it by that age.
Social media network X allows users to share pornography