(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) The adult site known as Pornhub has blocked citizens of Utah from viewing the site due to a new law enacting stricter age-verification processes.
Users reported the block initially on Monday morning when they found a 403 warning about the now-forbidden site.
According to Fox 13 Now, the company later updated the site with a lengthy message detailing the situation.
“As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” the statement read. “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.”
The site insisted that the measures it had in place to prevent children from accessing the content were adequate; the state of Utah, however, argued that the site had no proper enforcement.
“We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification,” Pornhub’s statement continued. “Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Utah.”
Senate Bill 287 unanimously passed through the state’s legislature, requiring greater identity verification processes for adult websites and content before viewing. Louisiana implemented a similar law earlier this year.
“Utah’s age-verification law goes into effect on May 3, but there’s no clear way to comply with it—Utah’s digital ID does not currently allow online verification—so many adult sites are just planning to block all visitors from the state, as they did in Louisiana,” said Mike Stabile, of the Free Speech Coalition, who is representing Pornhub in the case.
“Many of our members are concerned about the way SB287 was rushed through, with little attention to the technology or how it would be executed,” he added. “We’re already seeing incidents of identity theft in Louisiana related to the law, and expect the same in Utah.”
Republican state Sen. Todd Weiler said he believed Pornhub and other sites could easily comply with the new law.
“They are complying with LA’s law, which is essentially the same. So I expect they will eventually comply with Utah’s as well,” he wrote.
