Pornhub blocks access to its site in Florida
MIAMI - Floridians have lost access to Pornhub.com, the world's most popular adult entertainment website and 16th-most-visited site of any kind in the world.
Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, said it opted to block access to its site in Florida rather than comply with a new state law that kicks in on Jan. 1, 2025, requiring age verification to visit pornographic platforms.
The law, known as HB 3, was passed by the Florida Legislature in March. Last month, a trade group representing the adult entertainment industry filed a federal lawsuit trying to strike it down.
Message from Pornhub.com
Users trying to access site will encounter a video with the following message:
"As you may know, your elected officials in Florida 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 Florida.
"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."
Pornhub is blocked in other states
Before 2025, Pornhub blocked access in 14 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Like Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina were added Wednesday and Georgia will become the 18th state to require age verification to access pornographic websites in July, according to 404media.
Pornhub, which launched in 2007, saw more than 11.4 billion visits from global users in January 2024, according to Statista. Approximately 97% of traffic to Pornhub.com came from mobile devices.
According to similarweb, Pornhub is behind Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, X.com, Wikipedia, Chatgpt, Reddit, Yahoo, Amazon, Yandex.ru, Baidu, TikTok, Netflix, Microsoftonline, Bing.
Other porn sites haven't announced plans about the law.
The blocking is based upon on your virtual private proxy, or VPN.
Florida legislation affecting access to Pornhub
According to HB 3, which passed with bipartisan support and was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 25, sites with adult content "must offer anonymous age verification and standard age verification."
"You can have a kid in the house safe, seemingly, and then you have predators that can get right in there into your own home," DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville. "You could be doing everything right but they know how to get and manipulate these different platforms."
DeSantis vetoed the original version earlier in the year, citing legal and parents' rights concerns.
Former House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, who worked with DeSantis on the legislation, said during the summer: "Adults can do whatever they want, I don't care. But 8-year-old boys should not be accessing hard-core pornography at that age."
"Anonymous" age verification is not spelled out in the law, but the law states that a "nongovernmental, independent third party" offering the service can't retain personal identifying information and must protect it from unauthorized access.
Under the terms of the legislation, House Bill 3, websites hosting pornographic content can be fined up to $50,000 for each violation, along with attorney fees and the potential for civil liability if don't enforce the age verification requirement.
