Not everything is bigger in Texas it seems … ’cause the porn selection just got a heck of a lot smaller — with Pornhub blocking access to would-be users in the Lone Star State.
The porn giant’s not allowing users to hop on its site because of a new age verification legislation signed into law in Texas Thursday — which went into effect immediately … and, as a result, Pornhub.com is no longer available if users have a Texas IP address.
Thing is … it’s not because of the state — Pornhub themselves are responsible for blocking out their site entirely.
The bill requires people to prove they’re over 18 years old before watching explicit vids … but Pornhub is petty — instead of just complying with the new regulation and demanding people prove their age, they opted to shut down access to people in Texas altogether.
A new message appearing on the site to people in Texas says the company believes age verification infringes on the rights of adults to access protected speech, and the overly restrictive measure isn’t a real solution. Therefore, the company says it made the difficult decision to completely shut down access to the site. So … no porn for anyone!
Pornhub’s team expressed fear in its statement that users would hop over to sketchy sites that don’t check age verification … clearly not practicing safe porn surfing, from their POV. From the outside looking in, it would appear they’re punishing all Texans for what their lawmakers have enacted … which probably sucks for all the horny people wanting to watch.
As for how the public’s taking this … obviously, the reaction’s pretty split. Some people are happy it’ll be harder for kids to access material they deem harmful while others are calling out Texas lawmakers like Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott over the new law.
In any case, the issue’s got lots of people tense … for a variety of reasons, we suppose.