Florida joins a growing number of states boycotted by Pornhub in protest at the states’ age-verification requirements for users of pornography sites.
The law, known as HB 3 (Online Protection for Minors), was passed by Florida’s lawmakers in March this year and will require all pornography platforms to implement age-verification measures for users from January 1, 2025.
However, Pornhub parent company, Aylo, has decided to block access to the site in Florida rather than comply with the state’s legislation.
The New York Post reports that Pornhub users located in Florida were greeted by a pop-up message on Tuesday sharing the platform’s plans to withdraw from the state.
“YOU WILL LOSE ACCESS TO PORNHUB IN 14 DAYS,” the banner of the alert read, continuing, “Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB?”
“As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. You’ll be required to prove you are 18 years or older such as by uploading your government ID for every adult content website you’d like to access,” it said.
Florida joins another 12 states boycotted by Pornhub in response to similar legislative measures: Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
Florida news website Florida Politics reported that an email received from Aylo made clear that the restriction is in response to the age verification measure.
“Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard and dangerous.
“Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws,” the email is reported to read.
Pornhub is the world’s largest pornography platform, which according to statista.com, saw over 11.4 billion mobile visits from global users in January 2024 alone. The vast majority of the site’s traffic comes from mobile users.
Proponents of the bill, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Former House Speaker Paul Renner have spoken about the protective effect of the bill, which they argue will limit children’s access to “hard-core pornography”.
“Adults can do whatever they want; I don’t care,” Mr Renner said earlier this year, adding “But 8-year-old boys should not be accessing hard-core pornography at that age.”
A federal lawsuit has been filed against legislation by the ‘Free Speech Coalition’, which is a trade association for the sex industry, and others and argues that the law threatens a significant privacy risk.