MIAMI – Floridians have lost out to Pornhub. com, the world’s most popular online adult entertainment site and the 16th most visited site of its kind in the world.
Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, said it opted to block access to its site in Florida rather than comply with a new state law that kicks in on Jan. 1, 2025, requiring age verification to visit pornographic platforms.
The law, known as HB 3, was passed by the Florida Legislature in March. Last month, a trade group representing the adult entertainment industry filed a federal lawsuit trying to strike it down.
Users who visit the site will find a video with the following message:
“As you may know, your elected officials in Florida require us to determine your age before allowing you to access our website. While security and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing your identity to your age card whenever you The platform is not the most effective solution for our users and, in fact, will put children and their privacy at risk.
“In addition, requiring age verification without enforcing rights gives platforms the flexibility to comply or not.
“As we’ve noticed in other states, this only directs traffic to sites with far fewer security measures in place. Very few sites can compare to the physically powerful ones and security measures we have in place lately. To protect the privacy of young people and of users, it will be necessary to apply any laws against all platforms that offer adult content.
“The protection of our users is one of our greatest concerns. For us, the most productive and effective solution to protect young people and adults is to identify users through their device and allow them access to restricted websites and Internet sites by age based on this identity. Until a genuine solution is provided, we have made the difficult resolution to absolutely disable access to our online page at Florida. Array
“Contact your representatives before it’s too late and ask for device-based verification responses that make you safer and respect your privacy. “
Before 2025, Pornhub blocked access in 14 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Like Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina were added Wednesday and Georgia will become the 18th state to require age verification to access pornographic websites in July, according to 404media.
Pornhub, which launched in 2007, saw more than 11.4 billion visits from global users in January 2024, according to Statista. Approximately 97% of traffic to Pornhub.com came from mobile devices.
According to similarweb, Pornhub is Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, X. com, Wikipedia, Chatgpt, Reddit, Yahoo, Amazon, Yandex. ru, Baidu, TikTok, Netflix, Microsoftonline, Bing.
Other porn sites haven’t announced plans about the law.
Blocking is done on your personal virtual proxy or VPN.
According to HB 3, passed on a bipartisan basis and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis on March 25, sites that provide adult content “must provide no-name age verification and popular age verification. “
“You can have a kid in the house safe, seemingly, and then you have predators that can get right in there into your own home,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville. “You could be doing everything right but they know how to get and manipulate these different platforms.”
DeSantis vetoed the version earlier this year, raising legal and parental rights concerns.
Former House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, who worked with DeSantis on the legislation, said over the summer: “Adults can do whatever they want, I don’t care, but 8-year-olds can’t They should have to go through difficult situations. tumbling porn at that age. ”
“Anonymous” age verification is not provided for in the law, however, the law states that an “independent, non-governmental third party” providing the service cannot retain personally identifiable data and will have to protect it from unauthorized access.
Under the legislation, House Bill 3, websites that host pornographic content can be fined up to $50,000 for each violation, as well as attorney fees and conceivable civil liability. They do not meet the age verification requirement.