Pornhub has disabled its site in Texas to object to a state law that requires the company to verify the age of users to prevent minors from accessing the site.

Texas residents who visit the site are met with a message from the company that criticizes the state’s elected officials who are requiring them to track the age of users.

The company said the newly passed law impinges on “the rights of adults to access protected speech” and fails to pass strict scrutiny by “employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.”

    • ExcursionInversion@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      They want to ban it nationwide

      Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered

      -A Promise to America", Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, p. 5, Project 2025

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      Remember, one of the defining traits of right-wing political movements is the redefining of words. When a Conservative says “small government” what they really mean is “a government that can enforce our morals and values, but is incapable of enforcing rights, regulations, or equality.”

  • Fapper_McFapper@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I sure hope all porn sites follow Porn Hub’s lead. Just block Texas from viewing porn. Then I hope all broadband and cable TV operators follow suit as well, can’t have transexual cock on VOD or PPV. Let’s see how quickly Texas falls back in line. It won’t happen, but I can dream.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        8 months ago

        Yep, I do agree with that part of the statement. The only porn they’ll have access to will be completely unregulated and a haven for revenge porn and CP.

        Pornhub themselves weren’t amazing on that front to begin with, but they made more of an effort than most to try and clean that up due to regulatory pressures.

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          The kind of sites who won’t bother complying with Texas’ age verification law because they already hosted all kinds of illegal shit are just going to explode in popularity further entrenching a depraved and violent subset of sexual abusers.

          Anyway, I’m glad to see this sentiment echoed on Lemmy. Everywhere else it feels like people are thoughtlessly praising Pornhub and thinking this is a “big win.”

            • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              I think asking for ID online to view porn is practically unenforceable, which is why I’m of the opinion that a site like Pornhub will quickly be replaced by far more disreputable sites who will not follow the rules requiring IDs to view the porn.

              Pornhub cutting off Texas just isn’t as big of a win as people are making it out to be, imho, simply because its unenforceable and the kind of sites that are willing to ignore it probably have far worse on their sites to begin with. So those kind of sites will see their traffic drastically increase and men consuming porn in Texas will be exposed to far more violent and dangerous content. Pornhub is doing the right thing, sure, but it doesn’t mean it’s that simple.

              Do people really think Texas is going to spend time playing whack-a-mole with every single random porn site on the internet? I don’t.

              • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                Won’t Texas just go to the next step and start forcing the ISPs to ban the sites starting a never ending game of whackamole until they just outright ban all porn at the ISP level with a way to add a site super easily and on demand.

                At that point it’s VPN only in which case you can access it all anyway

                Edit: and of course the blanket isp ban will hit non porn things to, but that’s the cost to save the children!

                • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  Court time costs money, and in each one of these cases, they’ll have to start legal proceedings against every site, and then, if that doesn’t work and then they’ll have to sue each and every ISP for compliance. Taking it to court is a surefire way for the law to be shot down by the courts. Blocking at that level would undoubtedly run into Freedom of Speech issues.

                  1. There are roughly 4 million adult sites on the internet. That’s a lot of fucking court cases, especially when a bunch of these aren’t even headquartered in the US.

                  2. In Texas alone there are over 150 Internet Service Providers. While that’s an easier number to target, it’s far more likely to run into the 1st Amendment argument that blocking the site is blocking the freedom of speech of the ISP.

                  The reason they went with age verification was because it doesn’t end up in 1st Amendment territory. Outright blocking the sites for non-compliance and taking them to court risks the court throwing out the law and saying its unconstitutional.

                  Texas can’t even keep its power grid on, I have serious doubts they have the ability to achieve either of these things. Asking ISPs to wholesale block sites is about as difficult to enforce as age verification, which is basically unenforceable as it stands.

        • Kairos@lemmy.today
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          8 months ago

          Yes. I don’t explicitly like that you have to be verified to post content but it’s very nice to have the default porn site to be much better protected.

          • robotica@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Verifying your identity before posting potentially illegal content is a great deterrent against doing so, especially when it’s original content.

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        8 months ago

        I do wonder how this kind of thing will mesh with sites that arent for porn but do allow posting of it. Like reddit or for that manner any lemmy instance federated with one of the instances with nsfw subs

        • Spacemanspliff@midwest.social
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          If I remember there was a content percentage threshold that would probably keep things like reddit and federated instances allowed, the strictly porn instances however might also have to ban Texas.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          “I thought it was broken but the power grid is just down because it’s cold :(”

    • unalivejoy@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      I’m in North Carolina and the porn has been blocked since New Year’s. The hentai websites are the only ones I have access to. (E621 is also blocked).

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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        It’s not a NC thing, so I have to ask:

        Are you at work or some common access?

        Do you have a shared access at home, like parent/roommates/apartment/school?

        Some other parental type control in force?

        ISPs don’t care what you look at, they only get involved with copyright stuff because someone is hassling them to do something about it. Someone has filters at the local point to keep you from getting to places. VPN could help get past, depending on how the filters work. Interestingly I’ve gotten out with a VPN before when my ISP had my direct connection in suspension.

        • draughtcyclist@lemmy.world
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          It’s not blocked at layer 4 or anything. The website simply geolocates you and denies application access for users geolocated to NC. VPN gets around it fine.

          The bigger issue is that plenty of other sites still allow access… So it’s effectively punishing the rule followers.

      • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        How Dare They Block E621! Now I have to become an armchair warrior and get mad over something that doesn’t affect me in the slightest because I still have access! All while doing nothing about it!

        In all honesty, fuck these types of people for blocking sites that try to a degree to try and stop illegal porn on their platforms.

    • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      TIL there are people still paying for PPV porn on cable after we invented an entire worldwide network of porn you can access for free.

  • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    I’m a woman in Texas and if this has anything positive to come out of it, I hope a lot of the men here who don’t care about women’s reproductive rights will finally wake up to the Christian Nationalism really taking hold here, realize it may impact them, and help to do something about it.

  • Starkstruck@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    At least this’ll probably push more people to hate Republicans. Like, fucking with a man’s porn supply is just political suicide. At least I hope it is.

    • geekworking@lemmy.world
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      Don’t worry they’ll find a way to blame Biden.

      Anything is possible when logic, facts, and reality don’t matter.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      They should have also added a bit about big government intrusion into their personal privacy rights. They have to speak the conservative language to conservatives to really get them riled up.

  • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Just tried it. Yep, no access. Just a long message lambasting Texas politicians.

    I tried all the other regular sites, no issues.

    They’re gonna need an industry wide cooperation to successfully combat this.

    • AquaTofana@lemmy.world
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      I tried it, got the block message, and then tried it with a Kansas City VPN just to see if it would work. It did.

      I really liked the message though. Texas legislators are dumb af if they don’t think that this is going to push people to use websites without ID requirements and less stringent rules on content creation/safety.

      I mean, they were dumb af before this, but they’re extra dumb now too.

        • jaybone@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I wonder if they do it by ISP.

          I always wonder how they do these types of blocks. Sure you can get a city from an IP record, mine reports me as several counties away.

      • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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        The thing is, there’s hundreds, thousands, possibly millions of porn sites out there. There is no way any state is going to be able to block them all. Even if, by some miracle, they did manage to block them all - it won’t matter, people will still just use a VPN anyway.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I turned off my VPN and same. I talked to a buddy and found out they’re doing it in NC and Virginia too.

    • ditty@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Same lol. Pretty interesting read - Phub advocates for age verification on the device level rather than an individual website level.

  • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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    Texas loves to use words like “freedom” and “liberty”, and make them synonomus with their values. Then they pass legislation to force women to give birth, and they ban porn.

    Like… “y’all” really are fucking stupid down there (at least the conservatives.)

  • bamboo@lemm.ee
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    All blocking porn in the states will do is push users to sites hosted in the EU/Russia/Brazil/etc. Probably with even fewer safety checks or regulations.

    • A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
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      Came here to say this too. All they’re doing is pushing the users of those sites to less reputable sites

      I know how I was as a kid, and I sure as shit wouldn’t have stopped because my state said “no”

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      I can almost guarantee that the EU would have better regulations. Given that the US doesn’t even have anything akin to GDPR. If you’re in the EU and get a “sorry we can’t let you use our site because of GDPR” warning, you should consider it a blessing in disguise. Because it means the US users are getting their data harvested and sold without their knowledge or consent, and the GDPR prevents that.

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      8 months ago

      I’m sure that a national firewall is next. These right wing freedom humpers are deeply envious of totalitarian regimes.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      You may overestimate how technical the average person is. Think of the sort that would never bother with Lemmy.

      • bamboo@lemm.ee
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        I think this is one most people would figure out in time. After getting blocked on their go-to website, they’ll google or bing or whatever videos, and eventually find some that aren’t blocked and bookmark them.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    Texans will have to get their porn the old fashioned way now- finding an old magazine in the woods.

    • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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      Prior to the internet that was the best way to get it.

      I can’t imagine what the older generations were doing out there with stacks of Playboys, but I’m sure glad they didn’t care about leaving them out there for us to find.

    • Andonyx@lemmy.world
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      For real? That’s how we got ours too! (I’m exactly stranger things age.) Who was leaving all the porn in the woods?!?! Why? Why are anthropologists not dropping everything to figure this out?

    • Sightline@lemmy.ml
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      Texan prepper here. I’ve downloaded ~2000 videos from PH over the years just in case.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Hey Texas dudes! Jesus make u mad? Christ took your Christina? No problem!

    From the makers of the famous amous Chinese finger trap, here come the Cocklopper2000!

    Just place the mildly used or completely unused cock into the cock hole and press the button 🔘!

    No more useless cock hanging out like extra skin to toast in the hot Texan sun! The aerodynamics are fantastic!

    The Cocklopper2000 comes in with different levels of blade sharpness and motor speeds! From the gentle lop and clop of the brushed 1/2hp DC motor and stainless 304 blades to the neodymium 0 cog out runner brushless motor of the XL model with upgraded boron carbide blades. While the lower cost model is gentle enough to only need mild sedation, the XL model does it so quick and painless you’d swear it’s still attached!

    All models come with 1 year paid google drive with 3 email addresses! And free disposal cooler box with free postage paid for automatic shipping to the cock store! Your only only source of cocks! Your donation goes directly to benefit trans woman and transgender female to male persons!