US Sex Sells News

The Texas age-verification and labeling law is scheduled to take effect September 1, 2023. While multiple age-verification laws have taken effect this year, Texas will join Louisiana in allowing direct government enforcement.

According to the law, the Attorney General may fine a site with adult content $10,000 per day, and up to $250,000 if it fails to adequately verify the age of visitors and a minor is able to access it.

Additionally, the Texas law requires all adult sites to affix warning messages to any page with adult content stating the supposed harms of viewing adult material. These 'warnings' are as follows:

TEXAS HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES WARNING:

• Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function.

• Exposure to this content is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.

• Pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation, and child pornography.

Free Speech Coalition and a collection of leading adult platforms have filed a legal challenge to the Texas law, including a motion for preliminary injunction. While we are hopeful the challenge will succeed, and that a decision will be made prior to the start of enforcement, all members should be aware of the law and the risks of non-compliance. Alison Boden, Executive Director of Free Speech Coalition said:

This is a blatantly unconstitutional law, but the stakes are high for individual adult businesses with websites accessible in the state of Texas. We urge every platform and creator to review their potential exposure to legal liability with their legal counsel.

Free Speech Coalition has created landing pages for platforms that geo-block access to their sites from within the state of Texas , as it has in other states that have instituted age verification. The page explains why the site is blocked, and provides an avenue for residents to contact their representatives. However, geo-blocking a state does not necessarily provide safe harbor from the law.

The law, including the required age-verification methods and the legal warning stipulated, are available here .

Pornhub recently had to make the difficult decision to block access to users in Virginia and Mississippi due to newly passed Age Verification laws. These states have joined Utah and Louisiana where, earlier this year, similar laws were introduced. While these new laws claim to protect children from accessing harmful material online -- something we fully support -- they not only fail to do this, but also jeopardize user safety and privacy.

What does age verification mean?

In the context of these laws, age verification requires users to prove that they are 18+ to view adult content.

There are multiple ways that a user can prove their age, but any effective method requires them to submit some form of personally identifiable information ("PII"). By assigning this responsibility to the platform(s) visited by a user, this means submitting private information many times to adult sites all over the internet, while normalizing disclosure of PII across the internet. This is not a privacy-by-design approach.

It also creates a substantial risk for identity theft. Since age verification software requires users to hand over extremely sensitive information, it opens the door for the risk of data breaches. Whether or not your intentions are good, governments have historically struggled to secure this data. It also creates an opportunity for criminals to exploit and extort people through phishing attempts or fake AV processes, an unfortunate and all too common practice.

Age verification is a good thing, if done correctly

Safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission. We firmly believe age verification can make the internet a safer space for everyone, when it is done right. Unfortunately, the way these new laws are executed by lawmakers is ineffective and puts users' privacy at risk. Those seeking adult content will inevitably end up on irresponsible sites that don't enforce safety, privacy, consent, or content moderation.

Back in January, we saw the outcome of this firsthand when Louisiana passed a similar law. Pornhub was one of a tiny handful of websites to comply with the new state law requiring websites prevent minors from accessing them by employing age verification solutions.

The Louisiana law and other copycat state level laws have no regulator, only civil liability, which results in a flawed enforcement regime, effectively making it an option for platform operators to comply. Consequently, traffic to Pornhub dropped by approximately 80% in Louisiana, but we know that people didn't stop consuming porn overnight because of this new law. They just very easily moved to pirate, illegal, or other non-compliant sites that don't ask visitors to verify their age. Very few sites are able to compare to the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place to protect both the users viewing content on Pornhub from engaging with potentially dangerous content and provide a safe platform for creators to monetize their content and engage with fans. Most other sites unfortunately do not take these same extensive measures towards community protection and without barrier to entry, is where viewers risk ending up. Therefore, these laws have not only failed at protecting children, but have introduced further harm by displacing traffic to sites with few or zero Trust and Safety measures.

What you need to know -- a device-based solution

More of these laws are coming, and the safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. However, the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users at the source: by their device, or account on the device, and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification. This means users would only get verified once, through their operating system, not on each age-restricted site. This dramatically reduces privacy risks and creates a very simple process for regulators to enforce.

Who will these new laws affect?

These new laws will affect everybody differently. For example, Content Creators will get redirected to a separate login flow that will still allow them on the site to upload content. This is because, as verified users on Pornhub, which is the required status for anyone wishing to upload, they have already verified their age with government issued ID using Yoti. However, for site visitors in Utah, Mississippi, and Virginia, they are greeted by a video featuring Cherie Deville who explains why we had to make the difficult decision to block them from accessing Pornhub.

What is the ideal solution?

The only viable solution that will make the internet safer, preserve user privacy, and stands to prevent children from accessing material harmful to minors is performing age verification at the source: on the device itself.

What can community members do?

To fight against these haphazard and dangerous laws, we encourage all members of our community to stand up for your freedom to enjoy and consume porn privately. There are a few ways you can do this.

First, spread the message on social media. Using your platform to raise awareness and to help your fans understand the implications of these poorly designed laws is the first step in making a change. Be loud, be vocal, and show how important it is for us to get this right. We believe the only way for these laws to be effective is to have age verification on the devices used to access adult content.

Second, contact your local government and encourage your fans to do the same! Change begins when the public applies pressure and contacts lawmakers. Write them letters or emails, call their offices, tweet at them, demand changes and demand answers. It is their job as civil servants to respond to concerned citizens. In your letters, you can request device-based age verification solutions. By doing this, your safety and privacy, as well as the safety of your children, are protected much better than entering your ID every time you want to visit an adult website. In the meantime, share this blog widely to help spread the word!

And third, stay informed on legislative updates. Please check back often on the Free Speech Coalition AV page.

Don't give up! We know that normalizing sex work and sexual expression is an uphill battle, but it can be done. We must be vocal about it. Change begins with raising our voices, educating others, and engaging in these important conversations on our socials to spread the message. For more information, visit the Free Speech Coalition .

A US federal appeals court has upheld key portions of a federal internet censorship law Congress passed to supposedly combat sex trafficking, but in reality censors all aspects of consensual adult sex work. However the court did reject some broad readings of the statute that censor even debate about prostitution.

Advocates for legalizing prostitution, the operators of the Internet Archive website, Human Rights Watch and a massage therapist who said he lost business when Craigslist pulled many categories of ads after passage of FOSTA in 2018 sued to block enforcement of the law.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that language in the 2018 Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act -- better known as FOSTA -- is not unconstitutionally vague and doesn't violate free-speech rights.

However, the court did slightly restrict the reach of the censorship, saying:

We therefore hold that [FOSTA's] mental state requirement does not reach the intent to engage in general advocacy about prostitution, or to give advice to sex workers generally to protect them from abuse. Nor would it cover the intent to preserve for historical purposes webpages that discuss prostitution. Instead, it reaches a person's intent to aid or abet the prostitution of another person.

Judge Millett conceded that the language of the law could be seen as encompassing all sorts of conduct that arguably promotes or encourages prostitution. But she said the more limited reading was justified in this instance.She said:

Undoubtedly, the term 'facilitate' could be read more broadly. But nothing in [FOSTA] compels us to read 'facilitate' that way. Doubly so when a more expansive reading could raise grave constitutional concerns.

One of the most visited sites in the world, Pornhub, has blocked users in Virginia over the state's new age verification law.

The new law taking effect July 1 now requires websites with pornographic content being viewed in Virginia to verify that users are at least 18 years old before they can view the site. The law, proposed by Republican state Sen. William M. Stanley Jr. (Franklin), sailed through the Virginia General Assembly.

Pornhub decided that it would be blocking all Virginia users rather than try to implement unsafe and privacy endangering age verification.

Pornhub wrote in a message to those attempting to log in:

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 Virginia.'

 

 

Pornhub has released a new public service announcement on its homepage for site visitors in Virginia, Mississippi and Arkansas imploring them to contact their representatives and protest the age-verification laws for online adult content recently passed in each of those states.

The announcement features 2023 AVN MILF Performer of the Year Cherie DeVille, who last month appeared in a similar video for the website that greets visitors in Utah, where access to the site has been otherwise blocked in retaliation for a similar law that went into effect there May 3.

Meanwhile, in Louisiana, where yet another age-verification measure took effect January 1 of this year, Pornhub is currently complying with the requirement using a state-sanctioned digital ID mobile app called LA Wallet, making Louisiana the first state to implement a digital driver's license. According to a story today by tech site Ars Technica, a Pornhub spokesperson reported that Pornhub was one of the few adult sites to put an ID requirement into place in the state, and since doing so, Pornhub's Louisiana traffic dropped by approximately 80 percent as adult content seekers presumably chose to visit sites that do not require ID.

DeVille underscores this point noting:

As we've seen in other states where similar laws have passed, this just drives activities to other sites with far fewer or even no safety measures in place. This clearly demonstrates that poorly executed age verification solutions only make the internet more unsafe.

The Ars Technica story went on to add, Pornhub reported that Louisiana users have already experienced identity theft as a result of the age verification law there.

Access to banking services is a basic necessity in our society and adult industry members experience financial discrimination at alarming rates. The upshot is that already stigmatized and marginalized workers and businesses lose control of their own finances, subjecting them to extreme risk of exploitation.

This report, produced by the Free Speech Coalition in collaboration with Sex Work CEO, documents the broad scope of the discrimination faced by performers, content creators, professionals and business owners in the adult industry.

According to our data, nearly 2 out of 3 people who earn money in the adult industry have lost a bank account or financial tool, and nearly 40% have had an account closed in the past year. The report details, for the first time, the issues faced by adult businesses and workers in relation to banks, mobile payments, credit card processing, loans and insurance.

Over 400 members of the adult industry took part in the survey, and the report includes the experiences of performers, creators, business owners, executives, industry professionals, employees and others who earn income from adult entertainment.

See full report [pdf] from action.freespeechcoalition.com

The Arkansas House has approved an amendment to SB 66, a Republican bill that would require age verification before entering a website offering pornography, over confusing language. SB 66 was introduced in January by state Senator Tyler Dees, who later admitted that his state initiative is only a steppingstone toward the ultimate goal of a federal mandate.

A vote in the Arkansas House sent the amended bill back to the Committee on House Rules for further consideration, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported. Representative Mindy McAlindon told the paper that the amendment was needed to clarify distinctions between 'corporate entities' and 'third party vendors' in the bill.

SB 66 is a copycat version of Louisiana's Act 440, a new law enacted in January after being championed by a religious anti-porn activist Republican legislator.

Meanwhile Virginia lawmakers recently passed a bill with near-unanimous support that would require pornography websites to more stringently verify whether a person is 18 before allowing them access to the site. Websites would have to implement more advanced methods of their choosing to verify age, such as requiring users to submit copies of government-issued identification, biometric scans or use other forms of commercial age verification software.

Under the bill, a civil cause of action, or a lawsuit, could be brought on behalf of a minor who suffered damages from access to pornographic websites that didn't use age verification measures. No one spoke in opposition when the bill was debated during the session, but some people took to social media to express their concerns.

The bill now heads to Gov. Glenn Youngkin's desk for his signature.

A bill introduced by North Dakota Republican state senators would redefine obscene material and performance and explicit sexual material in extremely broad terms that would result in creating criminal liability for almost all instances of nudity and references to sex outside of adult venues.

Senate Bill 2360, aiming to amend Obscenity Control provisions, was introduced last week by State Sen. Keith Boehm and four fellow Republicans. State Rep. Jim Kasper sponsored the House version of the bill.

Although the purported aim of the bill is to address a questionable pornography crisis in North Dakota's school libraries, Boehm's bill would in fact redefine obscenity as

Material or a performance which:

Taken as a whole, the average person, applying contemporary North Dakota standards, would find predominantly appeals to a prurient interest; depicts or describes in a patently offensive manner sexual conduct, whether normal or perverted; and taken as a whole, the reasonable person would find lacking in serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Whether material or a performance is obscene must be judged with reference to reasonable adults, unless it appears from the character of the material or the circumstances of its dissemination that the material or performance is designed for minors or other specially susceptible audience, in which case the material or performance must be judged with reference to that type of audience.

Another section of the bill defines objectionable materials or performance and criminalizes anyone who may:

Willfully display at newsstands or any other business establishment frequented by minors, or where minors are or may be invited as a part of the general public, any photograph, book, paperback book, pamphlet, or magazine, the exposed cover or available content of which either contains explicit sexual material that is harmful to minors or exploits, is devoted to, or contains depictions or written descriptions of nude or partially denuded human figures posed or presented in a manner to exploit sex, lust or perversion.

Then SB 2360 proceeds to specify a sweeping redefinition of explicit sexual material, which would now mean any written, pictorial, three-dimensional, or visual depiction that is patently offensive, including any photography, picture, or computer-generated image, showing or describing:

1. Human masturbation;
2. Deviant sexual intercourse;
3. Sexual intercourse;
4. Direct physical stimulation of genitals;
5. Sadomasochistic abuse;
6. Postpubertal human genitals;
7. Sexual activity;
8. Sexual perversion; or
9. Sex-based classifications.

Leaving nothing to chance, the Republican senators also defined nude or partially denuded human figures to mean less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic regions, female breasts or a female breast, if the breast or breasts are exposed below a point immediately above the top of the areola, or human buttocks; and includes human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state even if completely and opaquely covered.

Finally, ensuring that any public space not zoned as adult-only would be covered by the censorship bill, the phrase where minors are or may be invited as a part of the general public was specifically clarified to mean any public roadway or public walkway, with the exception of a bona fide school, college, university, museum, public library or art gallery.