The largest pornographic website in the world begins warning Kentuckians: “You will lose access.”
That comes from the website Pornhub in response to the impending effective date of House Bill 278, which requires websites with content deemed “harmful to minors” to collect documents proving the user’s maturity before granting them access.
The bill was passed late in this year’s legislative session after an attempt by the Republican party “Liberty” to add an age verification component.
Once on the scene, it flew through both chambers without a single “no” vote and was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
The bill will take effect on July 15, the effective date for all legislation passed this year without an emergency clause.
Pornhub has informed users that it will be pulling the plug on Kentucky on July 10.
“Did you know that your government wants you to surrender your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB,” the site told users in a statement featuring the Kentucky state flag. “As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. From July 10, you will need to prove you are 18 years or older, for example by uploading your ID for any website with adult content you want to access.
“We do not want minors to have access to our site and we think it is a good thing to prevent that. But you cannot achieve that by endangering everyone’s privacy.”
A spokesperson for Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, has yet to respond to a Herald-Leader inquiry about whether or not they will ultimately comply with the law and create a mechanism to verify a user’s age based on documents.
The statement to users indicates that it wants to use device-based age verification methods instead of relying on documents.
In an earlier statement to the Herald-Leader, the company referenced a similar law passed by Louisiana last year.
Since it went into effect, Pornhub traffic has dropped by about 80% as it complied with the law, Aylo’s statement said.
“These people haven’t stopped looking for porn,” Aylo said. “They have simply migrated to the dark corners of the Internet, where users are not asked to verify their age, who do not follow the law, who do not take user safety seriously, and who often do not even moderate content.
“In practice, the laws have only made the Internet more dangerous for adults and children.”
It is possible that there could be legal challenges to the bill on the grounds of freedom of expression.
Sen. Gex WilliamsR-Verona, was the lawmaker who added the age verification section to House Bill 278.
He told the Herald-Leader during the hearing that he believed the bill would do well in court.
He said the state is less likely to be sued because the bill codifies a private right to legal action, as opposed to banning the practice of not having age verification on such websites.
But if it is challenged in court, Williams said it would join several similar cases that could make their way to the nation’s highest court.
“I think the Internet in general is ripe for a new Supreme Court review,” Williams said.
He also celebrated the possibility that sites like Pornhub will leave Kentucky, as it now indicates.
“I think it will be a good day for Kentucky kids if Pornhub and sites like it pull out,” Williams said.
The bill also provides a method for a child or the child’s parents to sue for $10,000 per incident where a pornographic website fails to verify a user’s age, as required by law. In addition, websites that retain users’ identifying information for more than 24 hours after their age has been verified are liable for damages of $1,000 per day, in addition to court costs and attorneys’ fees.
Websites subject to the requirement include websites that distribute material that is more than one-third ‘harmful to minors’.
The Free Speech Coalition, the trade association for the adult industry, has previously told the Herald-Leader with bills like this that “effectively remove anonymity from the Internet and expose millions of everyday citizens to the threats of hacking, identity theft and government surveillance.”
“There are more effective solutions that don’t require government censorship or put internet users at risk,” Mike Stabile, the coalition’s public affairs director, wrote in an email to the Herald-Leader.
