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Free porn site Pornhub is suing the state of Texas.
The site and its allies have now sued the Lone Star State to block the law.
In June 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 1181, which requires porn sites to digitally verify that each web user is over 18 years old by demanding that users submit pictures of their government-issued photo ID or facial scans, either to third-party companies or to the sites themselves.
The bill also would require a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” to be posted on sites “designed to appeal to or pander to the prurient interest” before users can access content.
Talk about killing the mood.
Pornhub and adult-entertainment industry advocacy group The Free Speech Coalition maintain that Texas' law violates constitutional rights to free speech.
“The Act in effect requires Plaintiffs to block access to their websites in Texas wholesale, unless they implement a system that requires all visitors to transmit their personal information to verify that they are at least eighteen years old," reads the complaint, filed Aug. 4 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas and shared online by Texas Public Radio.
“The Act also purports to compel Plaintiffs to display a lengthy, controversial, and factually false ‘Texas Health and Human Services Warning’ on their websites — maligning the very constitutionally protected content they feature,” according to the petition.
The complaint also outlines what the plaintiffs call “the true aim of the law,” which is not to protect those younger than 18 but to stiff the sexually curious out of constitutionally protected free speech simply because the state finds such content objectionable.
To illustrate their point, the plaintiffs noted that users could find backdoors to access adult content, whether it be via virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers, or via search engines and social media sites — the latter two of which aren't mentioned in the law.
A similar law went into effect in Louisiana in January, prompting a similar suit from Pornhub and its allies. So far, there's been no resolution, and Pornhub's web traffic in Louisiana has dwindled by about 80%, according to a Texas Public Radio report.
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