PornHub Revokes Florida Access Starting Jan. 1 Over State’s New Age Verification Law

The law, known as HB 3, was passed by the Florida Legislature in March. On Monday, a trade group representing the adult entertainment industry filed a federal lawsuit trying to strike it down.

Pornhub has already blocked access in 12 states: Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Users in the banned states will see “403 – This state is not whitelisted.”

Aylo sent an email to state news website Florida Politics about its plans:

“Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard and dangerous,” reads an email from Aylo. “Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.”

There is a pop-up warning for some users on its website letting them know the company’s views:

“Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB?” the warning says. “As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. You’ll be required to prove you are 18 years or older such as by uploading your government ID for every adult content website you’d like to access.”

The site adds: “We don’t want minors accessing our site and think preventing that from happening is a good thing. But putting everybody’s privacy at risk won’t achieve that.”

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.