A simple bi (as in bipartisan) law is screwing the online porn industry

[MU82]

Pornhub has, um, pulled out of several states rather than complying with age-verification laws

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/08/age-law-online-porn-00110148?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20230810&instance_id=99718&nl=dealbook&regi_id=108420427&segment_id=141617&te=1&user_id=d36dcf821462fdd16ec3636710a855fa

On June 15, 2022, a freshman legislator in Louisiana’s House of Representatives accomplished something no other lawmaker or activist in the country could claim: She passed a law that is changing the online porn industry.

If you think this was the result of a bitter culture war battle, think again.

“Pornography is creating a public health crisis and having a corroding influence on minors,” asserts the bill that state Rep. Laurie Schlegel introduced. Almost no one in the capitol in Baton Rouge disputes the statement; the bill sailed through the Louisiana House 96-1 and the State Senate 34-0. The bill holds pornography websites liable unless the websites “perform reasonable age verification methods” — in short, requiring users to show government ID to prove they are 18 or older. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, no fan of the legislature’s Republican super-majority, signed the bill about a week after it arrived on his desk.

Though the first of its kind, Louisiana’s age-verification bill was not the last. Nearly identical bills have passed in six other states — Arkansas, Montana, Mississippi, Utah, Virginia and Texas — by similarly lopsided margins. In Utah and Arkansas, the bills passed unanimously. The laws were passed by overwhelming margins in legislatures controlled by both parties and signed into law by Democratic and Republican governors alike. In just over a year, age-verification laws have become perhaps the most bipartisan policy in the country, and they are creating havoc in a porn industry that many had considered all but impossible to actually regulate.

Unlike past efforts to curb online porn that had simply declared the sites a danger to public health, these laws are not symbolic. And they are having real effects on how the massive online porn industry does business. Pornhub, the YouTube of pornography, gets more global users than Amazon or Netflix. In 2019, the last year Pornhub released its data, the site was visited 42 billion times, or 115 million times each day.

Lawsuits have been filed by the porn industry’s trade association, the Free Speech Coalition, against Utah and Louisiana, but in the meantime, porn companies have had no choice but to comply with the laws. According to Ethical Capital Partners, the private equity company that owns Pornhub, traffic in Louisiana has dropped 80 percent.

In the other three states where the laws have been in effect for months — Utah, Mississippi, and Virginia — Pornhub did something even more unprecedented: It simply stopped operating. Users in these states who attempt to visit the site are greeted with a safe-for-work video of Cherie DeVille (a porn star), clothed, explaining the site’s decision to pull out of the state.

As the video instructs, some angry porn users have called their legislators, but that has not dimmed the joy of lawmakers. According to Utah state Sen. Todd Weiler, the chief sponsor of Utah’s bill, many of his colleagues are celebrating the improbable and unexpected retreat of the pornography behemoth. Weiler said his colleagues “think it’s hilarious” and have been “high-fiving” each other in boyish triumph.

[Skatastrophy]

Pornhub did something even more unprecedented: It simply stopped operating. Users in these states who attempt to visit the site are greeted with a safe-for-work video of Cherie DeVille (a porn star), clothed, explaining the site’s decision to pull out of the state.

The withdrawal method has passed the test of time

[JWags85]

In other news, VPN download and usage has skyrocketed in Louisiana and Utah.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

In other news, VPN download and usage has skyrocketed in Louisiana and Utah.

Exactly.  Pornhub doesn't need to spend money fighting these laws, their consumers are smart enough to use work around.  Just ask tsmith.