Following a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, one of the country’s largest adult entertainment websites has shut down services in Texas.
The content ban arose after Paxton accused Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo Global Entertainment, of violating HB 1181 which requires reasonable age verification measures to protect minors from obscene materials. The law requires online pornography distributors to first use age verification methods to ensure that all users are 18 or older.
Pornhub claimed the law was the least effective and most restrictive means of protecting minors online, adding that it could even put adults private personal information in danger, which prompted the ban on services statewide.
Aylo Global Entertainment could be subject to millions of dollars in civil penalties if it failed to abide by HB 1181 which has fines of up to $10,000 per day, and an additional $10,000 per day if the corporation illegally retains identifying information, plus $250,000 if a child is exposed to pornographic content due to failure to properly verify a user’s age.