Two porn websites face millions in fines after Texas accuses them of ignoring its age-verification law

Attorney General Ken Paxton filing a lawsuits this week against adult-content websites XHamster and Chaturbate, alleging that the naughty online platforms are violating Texas’ age-verification law, which had been tied up until recently in a federal court fight.

Paxton’s suits, filed Tuesday in Travis County District Court against the porn websites’ parent companies, Multi Media LLC and Hammy Media, is requesting that the companies pay millions in fines for violating the law, House Bill 1181, adopted by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature in 2023.

Allowed to go into effect earlier this month, the measure requires porn websites operating in Texas to require age verification by users with an official government-issued ID. After an appeals court ruled in the state’s favor on the law’s constitutionality, adult content websites Pornhub, RedTube and YouPorn have pulled out of the state, blocking access for Texas users.

Paxton’s lawsuit against XHamster and Chaterbate demands that the pair’s parent companies pay $1.67 million and $1.78 million in fines for not implementing age-verification for the sites.

“I will continue to aggressively enforce HB 1181. All pornography companies lacking proper age verification safeguards on their sites should consider themselves on notice because they’re violating Texas law,” Paxton said in a statement.

Word of Paxton’s lawsuit comes after San Antonio ranked as having the fifth highest rate of VPN searches in the state after Pornhub cut off access to Texas users. Indeed, Texans ranked as having the highest rate of searches for VPN services last week, as previously reported by the Current.

VPNs, or virtual private networks, can be used to shield the location of a computer accessing the Internet, providing a potential workaround for Texans wanting to access adult content without sharing an ID.

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This article appears in Mar 20 – Apr 2, 2024.