Due to verification requirement: Pornhub & Co. now block 17 US states

Because strict verification requirements for certain websites came into force in three more US states at the turn of the year, Pornhub and other porn portals are now also blocking access from Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina. This means that people in a total of 17 US states are now unable to access these sites without technical aids, according to the US magazine 404 Media. The states affected are almost exclusively in the south of the USA, along with three in the northwest. What they all have in common is that they are dominated by the Republican Party.

Users should exert pressure

Responsible for the increasingly widespread blockade are laws that are largely based on a common template and are intended to ensure that porn sites are no longer accessible to people under the age of 18. This is intended to protect minors. The only requirement is that users authenticate and verify themselves to the sites in order to confirm their age. However, Aylo (formerly Mindgeek), by far the largest operator of porn portals, does not agree with which verification options are permitted. To increase the pressure on politicians to change this, access from the respective states is completely blocked.

To emphasize this, access from the affected states only shows a video message from a US porn actress in which she explains this demand – dressed – and calls for protest. Aylo now tells CBS that Florida and other states have "unfortunately" decided to introduce an "ineffective, arbitrary and dangerous" age rating requirement. If adult content sites have to collect "significant amounts of highly sensitive personal data", this puts users at risk. Furthermore, experience has shown that they would then simply switch to alternatives that do not comply with the law.

(mho)