.png)
Last legislative session Texas passed HB 1181, an age verification law for pornography sites. The Texas Attorney General sued Aylo Global, a major pornography distribution company that owns sites like Pornhub. In response to this lawsuit Pornhub had a meltdown and is demanding that all porn addicts call their legislators to have this bill reversed.
Instead of just implementing an age verification mechanism they just shut down the whole site. Why is it so important to them to allow children to use their site? Pornography is extremely addicting and the unfortunate truth is that many times pornography companies target the younger, more influenceable demographic.
Whenever a bill passes there’s always the worry that it won’t be actually prosecuted when violated. Texas HB 900 better known as the READER Act had its enforcement clause stripped by federal courts leaving Attorney General Ken Paxton unable to step in. Swift action was taken on this bill by the Office of the Attorney General to enforce this bill. We applaud all who fight to protect the innocence of children.
Texas HB 1181 is a fantastic and much needed bill that helps protect children from the dangers of addiction to pornography. The bill does have some extreme gaps. It doesn’t require all sites that may have pornography to require age verification. It has allowances that if up to ⅓ of the material on the site is pornography no age verification mechanism is needed. This essentially gives a pass to social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, and X to still allow porn on their site as long as it doesn’t exceed ⅓. This bill needs some change next legislative session to make it a 1% rule. This 1% rule would still be fair to social media companies but would put pressure on them to remove the sexually explicit materials from their site. We must step in against these social media companies because a lot of the time, the addiction starts there.
There are still many battles to fight to protect the innocence of children in this great state. Texas SB 12, the bill that would ban sexually explicit performances performed in front of children is still stuck in federal courts. This bill was intended to ban things like sexually explicit drag shows from the eyes of children.
Pornhub having this meltdown over the requirement of an age verification method is very telling of the types of operations they run. The state of Texas had a simple ask, don’t allow children to consume sexually explicit material and the result was them shutting down all operations in Texas. We must fight back against these companies to protect the innocence of children.