Pornhub blocked all users in Arkansas after the state’s new age verification law went into effect on Tuesday. The law requires porn sites to verify that users are at least 18 years old. Pornhub argued that requiring ID verification actually harms users’ privacy and puts children at risk. MindGeek, Pornhub’s operator, has decided to block access from states with similar age verification laws. After complying with a similar law in Louisiana, Pornhub traffic dropped by 80%, so they decided blocking access entirely was preferable to implementing age verification.
States they have blocked for similar laws: Virginia, Utah, Mississippi.
In Louisiana the first state to do this they tried to comply and their traffic decreased by 80%.
Good. Let all the conservative boomers who can’t figure out VPNs get pissed at their legislators for trying to push this b.s.
If they get this to be normalized, next up will be “well there are other sites we can’t control, so now you need to put in your ID card into a reader anytime you’re online!”
Republicans would love to have their own version of WeChat and their own great firewall. That’s what Musk is planning to do with whatever he’s calling twitter now, after all.