Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pornhub’s parent company for violating state law by failing to take age verification measures to prevent children from accessing adult-only sites.
Airo Global Entertainment is accused of violating House Bill 1181, a Texas law that became law last year. The law requires porn sites to take reasonable steps to prevent anyone under 18 from viewing explicit content.
Paxton is asking a state court to impose an injunction forcing Airo to implement an age verification system that allows access only to those who use a government-issued ID to prove their adult status. There is.
“The age verification methods used by Defendants on their websites do not authenticate anything and do not fully meet the requirements of the law,” according to the complaint filed in Travis County District Court. That’s what it means.
The newspaper has contacted Mr. Airo for comment.
“Texas has the right to protect our children from the harmful effects of pornographic content,” Paxton said in a news release.
“We look forward to holding companies accountable who violate age-verification laws designed to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful and indecent content on the internet.”
Last fall, a federal judge struck down the law and blocked Paxton from enforcing it.
The justices agreed with arguments that the law violated free speech rights and was too broad and vague.
But on appeal, another federal judge reversed the lower court’s ruling and allowed the attorney general’s office to enforce the law.
Under current law, websites deemed to be in violation can be fined up to $10,000 per day.
Texas is one of several states pushing legislation aimed at cracking down on minors’ access to pornography.
Last month, West Virginia’s Republican-led House of Representatives proposed a bill that would require internet users to show state-sponsored identification before accessing pornography.
The bill would require companies with “content that is harmful to minors,” which accounts for a “substantial portion” of their website offerings, or more than 33%, to implement “reasonable age verification methods.” .
In September, the North Carolina state legislature passed a bill requiring age verification on porn sites.
In Utah, a state law requiring adult websites to verify the age of users remains in effect after a federal judge in August rejected a lawsuit from an industry group challenging its constitutionality.
The judge said the law does not direct the state to pursue or prosecute adult websites, but instead gives Utah residents the power to sue adult websites and seek damages. It pointed out.
Similar laws were enacted in Louisiana, Virginia, and Mississippi.
Pornhub retaliated by blocking users based in Virginia, Mississippi, and Utah from accessing the site.
