Millions of Americans must present an identity document if they want to view pornography online. This decision could have implications for the future of the Internet.
If someone from Texas tries to access the Pornhub website, they are in for a disappointing surprise: instead of the usual content, they will see a single clip featuring an adult film star, Cherie DeVille, fully clothed, explaining the site’s access terms.
She informs users that official regulations require identity verification and that under these conditions, the platform has decided to block access for all residents of this state.
Texas is not the only state in this situation - "a massive online porn outage" has swept across America, notes BBC.
In 2023, Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah, and Virginia enacted provisions requiring age verification, and Pornhub decided to ban access in these states. North Carolina and Montana followed suit this year. And in recent weeks, the same legislation has been adopted in Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska.
Similar new legislative provisions will come into effect in southern states by next year, meaning that Pornhub, the fourth most popular site globally according to some measurements, could be blocked for one in three Americans.
The purpose of these laws is to protect children from accessing pornographic content. There are concerns that this could be harmful by normalizing aggressive sexual behavior or by creating unrealistic sexual expectations.
From 2022 to date, 19 American states have enacted laws requiring pornographic sites to verify users' ages, and legislators have proposed amendments regarding age verification at the national level.
This move towards identity verification is not limited to adult sites. Other regulations in the US, UK, Australia, and some parts of Asia may soon require age verification for access to social networks and various other platforms.
Supporters argue that the process is no different from the identity verification required when purchasing a pack of cigarettes. "It's straightforward. We don't believe that young people should have access to the amount of pornography they can access today," says Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, a conservative organization supporting age verification legislation.
Opponents of the new regulations argue that they are poorly designed and could even push people into the darkest corners of the Internet, putting children and adults at greater risk.
They also argue that the effects of the new legislation could have profound consequences for the future of the Internet and freedom. "Let's be honest, between social media and pornography, that probably covers the bulk of everyone's online activity," says Daniel Kahn Gillmor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
A Safer Internet for Children or a Step Towards Censorship?
Few would disagree that preventing children from accessing online pornography is a good idea. But some believe there are better ways to do so than by tightening age verification provisions.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to review the age verification issue in a case brought by Aylo, the company that owns Pornhub. The court's ruling remains uncertain.
Amid increasingly intense political debates on how to best regulate the online environment and the technological platforms that support it, the Internet seems to be at a turning point.
"This is the canary in the coal mine; it's not just about porn," says Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group.
She believes that age verification laws are a simplistic trick to impose web censorship. "We're not just opposing it because of some lofty idea about freedom of expression. We fundamentally believe it will make children less safe, distancing them from information on some of the most important topics in their lives."
"It's an important and valid discussion about the impact of pornography on our society that needs to be had, and platforms should be pressured to do more to protect children. But once you need an identity check to browse the web, that immediately creates a barrier to freedom of expression and limits people's access to information," she argues.
On the other side, representatives of age verification advocacy groups argue that these compromises are worth making, and the new laws are crucial for protecting children's online safety and are easy to implement.
"The porn industry lies to you and is hysterical," says Schilling. "It's an obvious truth that children shouldn't have access to pornography, but even if they didn't, some research suggests that early exposure to pornography is highly damaging to children."
Over a dozen US states have passed resolutions declaring that pornography represents "a public health crisis", highlighting the dangers for children in particular. Their concerns are echoed by a number of international organizations, including UNICEF and the Children's Commissioner for England, who in a recent report on a survey of 1,000 young people concluded that pornography can normalize sexual violence and harmful attitudes among children.
The Porn Industry Doesn't Want Children on XXX Sites
Protecting children is the only goal that leaders in the porn industry agree with their harshest critics on. "Pornhub is in favor of age verification. Period," says Alex Kekesi, Vice President of Brand and Community at Aylo, Pornhub's parent company.
"We don't want children on our platforms, and we welcome additional regulations to make it difficult, if not impossible, for children to access age-inappropriate content."
The issue, she says, is that current age verification laws are ineffective in protecting children. Internet policy experts say that filtering applied only in some states can be circumvented by using virtual private networks (VPNs) that allow location masking. Additionally, children can still access pornographic content on sites that do not comply with the law.
Top representatives from the porn industry are not the only ones expressing this concern. Bob Cunningham, Executive Director of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), stated in a declaration that these provisions could steer children towards much more dangerous online environments, both on the regular internet and the Dark Web.
Some major porn sites choose to comply with the new laws, either through age verification or by completely withdrawing from certain areas, but millions of other websites do not. According to many child safety experts, mainstream porn sites do a better job of controlling dangerous and illegal content than those less willing to comply with the new legislation.
The argument of the porn industry is that if people are going to watch porn anyway, mainstream sites are some of the safer places to do so.
What People Do When Asked for Age Verification
On platforms that comply with age verification laws, there is already a decrease in the number of users who remain on the sites.
According to xHamster, a top adult video platform that requires IDs in the US, only 6% of site visitors attempt to pass the age verification step. Only half of them eventually succeed.
While some users give up on the desire to search for pornographic content, experts say that most look for what they want elsewhere.
"To be honest, this leads to the suppression of the most responsible sites in the industry in favor of those that often don't verify users who upload, don't moderate content, don't integrate age verification, and hide their jurisdiction," said an xHamster spokesperson.
Why Age Verification on the Internet Is a Problem
Similar concerns apply to other age verification regulations. For example, the Online Safety Bill in the UK will impose age restrictions for pornographic content, social networks, and many large online platforms.
Wikipedia recently announced that it will refuse to comply with age verification rules in the United Kingdom - "it would violate our commitment to collect minimal data about readers and contributors," the company stated.
There is no doubt that online anonymity has contributed to a series of serious issues, such as child abuse, drug trafficking, cyberbullying. However, civil liberties supporters argue that the same anonymity ensures the freedoms that have made the Internet such a positive, revolutionary force.
"Age verification places a burden on adults' ability to access content, as it means that all users must verify their age, not just children," says Vera Eidelman, one of the ACLU lawyers working on the future case before the US Supreme Court opened by Pornhub. She says this measure would deal a serious blow to online anonymity, depriving people of the right to explore ideas and speak freely: "(...) it means that people will be much more hesitant to engage with content that is legal."
What would be the best solution
In this entire debate, the most important question is whether a way could be found to protect both privacy and children.
There is another solution favored by many opponents of age verification: a system known as device age verification. Practically, lawmakers would require technology companies to integrate age verification features into smartphone and computer operating systems.
All current age verification provisions require sites to perform verification on their own, usually by using third-party tools.
This can be a problem, as it outsources digital security to companies that may not have the resources or a track record of user protection. And there are concrete examples: in June, a report by 404 Media found that a company used for age and identity verification on TikTok, Uber, and X left scanned driver's licenses exposed online and vulnerable to hacker intrusions.
Device-based age verification tools, built by companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, would likely be more reliable than third-party tools or systems designed by governments to protect data against leaks and hackers.
This type of device verification would give parents the option to activate it, rather than imposing identity checks on every Internet user who visits a porn site. Thus, power would shift from the state to families.
Additionally, device-based verification would be cheaper and easier for sites to adopt, increasing the chances of broader compliance on the Internet.
It also helps with privacy issues; a website could ask the phone to verify age without distributing additional information about the owner.
"Most phones are purchased by parents, not minors, so parents could set up parental controls without having to ask people to upload their identity document. That's why we're so confused by this legislation. There's an easy way to do this," says Mike Stabile, director of public policy at Free Speech Coalition.
However, even device age verification has its critics. "Why should Apple be responsible for protecting children from porn? It's not Apple's problem, that's Pornhub's problem," says Schilling. "Pornhub is a billion-dollar company and it's a joke to suggest that it couldn't find a safe and efficient way to verify users' age without violating their privacy," he argues.
Schilling dismisses the entire debate over age verification laws as being in bad faith on the part of an industry fighting to maintain its billion-dollar profits.
But for others, the future of freedom of expression on the Internet hangs in the balance. At least in the US, it now depends on the Supreme Court.