Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pornhub’s parent company Monday for allegedly failing to implement age verification measures as required by state law.
The state’s law, which the Fifth Circuit upheld in November 2023, requires pornography websites to use “reasonable age verification” to confirm visitors are over 18 years old. The lawsuit filed Monday claims the methods used by Pornhub’s parent company Aylo Global Entertainment “cannot be said to verify anything at all” and seeks an injunction forcing it to comply with the law.
“[M]inors who visit Defendants’ websites are either immediately presented with sexual material harmful to minors with no form of verification needed, or are asked to complete the trivial step of clicking an ‘enter’ button which, ostensibly, verifies the viewer is over the age of 18,” the lawsuit states. “Moreover, even when the Defendants’ websites require an ‘enter’ button be pressed, that button is often displayed along with a sample of the sexual material published or distributed on the website.”
Under the law, companies face fines of up to $10,000 per day. The lawsuit seeks “a civil penalty of up to $1,600,000 plus up to $10,000 a day for each day after the date of filing.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Mary Miller To Introduce Legislation Protecting Minors From Exposure To Online Porn)
🚨Today, I filed a lawsuit against Aylo Global Entertainment, a major pornography distribution company, for violating HB 1181, a Texas law that requires reasonable age verification measures to protect minors from being exposed to obscene materials.
Texas has a right to protect… https://t.co/5mkqz9XwT3— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) February 26, 2024
“Texas has a right to protect its children from the detrimental effects of pornographic content,” Paxton said in a statement. “I look forward to holding any company accountable that violates our age verification laws intended to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful, obscene material on the internet.”
Other states have passed similar laws. Last August, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming Utah’s age verification law violated the First Amendment.
Aylo Global Entertainment did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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