Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Ayo Global, the parent company of Pornhub, after the pornography website failed to comply with a new state law requiring such online operations to verify users’ ages.
HB 1181 went into effect this past November, mandating porn sites to make sure their users are at least 18 years of age. The bill was authored by Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-Plano), Nate Schatzline (R-Fort Worth), Nicole Collier (D-Fort Worth), Claudia Ordaz (D-El Paso), and Jared Patterson (R-Frisco).
“Texas has a right to protect its children from the detrimental effects of pornographic content,” said Paxton, per the Texas Scorecard. “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.”
Companies that violate the Texas age verification law are subject to fines of up to $10,000 per day. If the company obtains identifying information illegally, an additional penalty of $10,000 per day can be enforced. Further, if a child is exposed to adult content due to the company’s failure to verify the user’s age, an added $250,000 fine can be imposed.
In 2023, a group of porn-industry insiders won a preliminary injunction to block the mandated content warnings imposed by the new law. The group called the law part of a “long tradition of unconstitutional — and ultimately failed — governmental attempts to regulate and censor free speech on the internet,” reported the Courthouse News Service. The group claimed that “Texas could easily spread its ideological, anti-pornography message through public service announcements and the like.”
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately overruled the injunction in September of last year. With the injunction gone, Texas can continue to enforce the law, and Paxton can sue Ayo Global.
