After months of edging, Montana and North Carolina lawmakers have finished off Pornhub. Users in those states lost access to the adult site on Jan. 1 as new laws require people to verify their age to watch porn. That would have meant uploading a picture of your ID before you watch sorority sisters figure out how to pay the pizza delivery boy. To spare us all, Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, just removed access to its adult sites for those states altogether.
“As you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” says a message when visiting Pornhub, Redtube, Brazzers, and YouPorn in Montana and North Carolina. “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”
Aylo says that until a “real solution” is offered, its platforms will be completely disabled in these states. The new laws that went into effect Monday did not ban porn altogether, but Pornhub has taken a similar stance in other states that have introduced age restrictions, and legislators likely knew this was coming.
Louisiana was the first state to pass age verification laws that target porn sites that went into effect a year ago. Eight more states have passed laws that prohibit younger users on the platform.
Montana’s new law, SB 544, says that “pornography is creating a public health crisis and having a corroding influence on minors.” North Carolina’s law, HB 8, states that any entity that distributes “material harmful to minors on the internet” must verify the age of the individuals attempting to access it. Other states that passed similar laws restricting minors from watching porn are Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.
Google searches for VPN, which would allow you to bypass state restrictions, jumped in recent weeks in both Montana and North Carolina, according to Google Trends.