Will Popular Adult Website Block New Yorkers?

There's been a lot of talk about it.

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Of course, it has been whispered about.

But the facts are these.

Pornhub.com (not gonna hotlink that one) has blocked access to certain people.

Those people just happen to live in Utah. Why would they do such a thing?

Does Pornhub dislike people from the Beehive State? Did the people of Utah do something they shouldn't have?

Well it's never that simple, is it?

This comes down to legislation, as so many things usually do.

A new law, SB 287, recently passed into law by unanimous vote. This law makes it so the people of Utah must verify that they are at least 18 years of age before they can  access adult content. On the surface, that does not seem objectionable. We, as a society, do not want children accessing these sites.

But let's look deeper. Pornhub's statement on the matter sheds a different light on motives and possible downsides to forcing people to enter their state IDs on the internet.

As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.

 

In addition, mandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply. As we’ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place. Very few sites are able to compare to the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place. To protect children and user privacy, any legislation must be enforced against all platforms offering adult content.

 

The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification. Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Utah.

 

Please contact your representatives before it is too late and demand device-based verification solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy.

So what about New York? Could we be facing something similar?

As long as laws that aren't very well thought out aren't passed, then it should not be an issue. As of now, there is no such legislation being suggested in this state.

Now that's freedom.