“Some porn websites have complied with the Online Safety Act by requiring U.K. visitors to upload an ID or submit to a facial scan. “But some of the biggest porn sites that disregarded the ‘scan your face’ rule entirely have been rewarded with a flood of traffic,” the Post found. “Some have doubled or even tripled their audiences in August compared with the same time last year.”
When sites do comply with rules like these, they risk putting people’s privacy and cybersecurity at risk. The more times you have to submit a copy of your driver’s license or a picture of your face for identification, the more likely you are to find yourself in a data breach.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/03/more-age-verification-fallout-artist-blogs-blocked-porn-data-leaked-traffic-boosts-for-noncompliant-sites/
“Advocacy groups say more than 100 cruise ship crew members have been deported in recent months, and they’re not being shown the evidence against them or given any due process.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/13/cbp-is-deporting-cruise-ship-crew-over-child-pornography-allegations-without-evidence/
“Alabama can’t seem to decide whether it wants to discourage porn consumption or profit from it. Starting in September, it will levy a 10 percent tax on adult website proceeds from any porn produced or sold in the state.
Adult websites are reportedly being told to create their “Material Harmful to Minors tax accounts” now.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/04/alabamas-porn-tax-starts-soon/
“They found first that the passage of age-verification laws corresponded to a significant reduction in searchers for Pornhub, the dominant porn platform complying with these laws.
That’s what proponents of age-verification laws want, right?
Not so fast. The passage of such laws was also linked to significant increases in searches for XVideos, the dominant porn platform noncompliant with these laws.
The researchers also found age-verification laws linked to an increase in searches for virtual private network (VPN) services, which can mask a user’s location, thereby allowing people in states where age-verification laws exist to appear as if they’re visiting websites from within a state where no such laws exist.
“Our findings highlight that while these regulation efforts reduce traffic to compliant firms and likely a net reduction overall to this type of content, individuals adapt primarily by moving to content providers that do not require age verification,” states the paper.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/12/study-age-verification-laws-dont-work/
“”There will always be websites willing to provide porn without carding viewers. These platforms are also less likely to take other steps to stay within regulatory or creator-protective limits,” Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote in March. “By driving viewers away from platforms like Pornhub—sites that engage in at least some content moderation, are relatively receptive and responsive to authorities, and are willing to forge mutually beneficial partnerships with porn creators—age verification laws could actually increase viewership of exploitative or otherwise undesirable content.””
https://reason.com/2024/04/11/states-keep-passing-unconstitutional-age-verification-laws-for-porn-sites/
Won’t porn-users just watch different porn on different sites? Likely getting more computer viruses while they’re at it. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/08/age-law-online-porn-00110148
“You can take down the big targets, the Pornhubs and Kiwi Farms of the world, easily enough. Maybe you toss their owners in jail or hit them with big fines.
But when their erstwhile users make a new site, or a thousand new sites—and they will—will they all get taken down too? Will you get everyone who uploads a video or leaves a comment? Everyone whose internet history shows they’ve visited these sites? What about emailing the banned content to download for offline viewing—is that illegal too? What kind of mass surveillance apparatus are you willing to build to catch everyone who bypasses the ban?
And if you catch them, what then? Would the government fine people? Garnish their wages? Put them on a sex offender registry? Take away their children?
Would we imprison people over pornography? For how long? (Remember, we’re talking about a ban on all porn or other objectionable but currently legal content, not already and rightly illegal things like child pornography, nonconsensual pornography, or the swatting to which Greene was subjected.) Is a family better off if the dad gets three strikes and goes to prison for a year and can’t find a job when he gets out? Will putting a young man addicted to pornography in the criminogenic environment of prison make him more or less likely to get his life on track?
None of this is to suggest porn is a good thing or that I’m sorry to see Kiwi Farms go. I believe pornography is evil, and from what I know of Kiwi Farms, good riddance. But as Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter observed in 2014, “making an offense criminal” doesn’t simply show “how much we care about it.” Ultimately, every ban creates the possibility “that the police will go armed to enforce it.”
Don’t get squeamish, prohibitionists. Tell us what stick you have in mind. Content ban plans can’t be taken seriously until you explain what, exactly, you want the state to do to people who break your rules.”