North Carolina and Montana have been added to Pornhub’s blacklist following the two states’ implementation of age verification laws on January 1.
Details of the Ban in the United States
A similar ban was imposed in Arkansas in August, joining Mississippi, Virginia, and Utah.
In these states, individuals attempting to access sites run by Aylo (formerly known as MindGeek), which includes Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube, Brazzers, and others, are greeted with a video message from performer Cherie DeVille explaining the ban.
DeVille states: “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, requiring ID each time you wish to visit an adult platform isn’t the most effective solution to protect our users, and in fact, it puts children and your privacy at risk.”
Aylo’s Position
Aylo says in its statement to PCMag that “the approach taken by many authorities around the world to implement age verification is ineffective, arbitrary, and dangerous.”
Aylo adds: “Any regulations requiring hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect vast amounts of sensitive personal information put user safety at risk,” also noting the existence of “free and user-friendly parental control features” on many devices.
The Laws in North Carolina and Montana
In North Carolina, House Bill 8 pertains to broader educational issues, including adding requirements for computer science to high school graduation. However, it also mandates age verification for pornographic sites. When the law was signed in late September, Governor Roy Cooper stated that these age verifications are “important… to help protect children from online pornography.”
The law requires sites to use “a commercially available database regularly used by businesses or governmental entities for the purposes of age and identity verification or… another commercially reasonable method.” Sites that fail to comply with the law may face civil lawsuits from parents of children who viewed pornographic content or from anyone whose data is held unlawfully.
In Montana, SB 544 requires sites to verify age by presenting a “digital ID” or accessing a “commercial age verification system” that verifies a government-issued ID or uses another “commercially reasonable” method to confirm a person’s age.
In both states, the laws pertain to sites with at least 33.3% adult content.
The Ban in Mississippi and Virginia
In a story update on July 5, 2023, Pornhub announced that it had banned access to its site in Mississippi and Virginia after both states enacted age verification legislation.
While Pornhub supports measures to prevent children from accessing pornographic content, the lack of enforcement by the states impacts companies that comply with these laws, according to the company.
After similar legislation was enacted in Louisiana, for instance, Pornhub stated: “Pornhub was one of the few sites that complied,” resulting in an 80% drop in traffic from the state.
Pornhub adds: “These people didn’t stop searching for pornographic content; they just moved to other corners of the internet that don’t require users to verify their age, don’t comply with the law, don’t take user safety seriously, and often don’t monitor content either.”
As a result, Pornhub is now blocking visitors from Mississippi and Virginia, in addition to the existing block on visitors from Utah. The company states that it prefers states to adopt a standard where age verification occurs on the device, pointing out that parental control features are available and easy to use on most platforms.
How to
Accessing Pornhub in Utah
Before I begin, I must clarify that I am not in Utah and cannot verify my advice. More importantly, while this advice can be used to bypass the Pornhub ban in the state, it can also be used to avoid the age requirements that Pornhub enforces. Please note that I am not a legal expert and cannot provide advice regarding the risks of attempting to circumvent the law.
That being said, the easiest way to access Pornhub in Utah is by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). When a VPN is running, your web traffic is routed through an encrypted connection to a server operated by the VPN company. This server can be in another state or a different country than you. Since your web traffic exits from this server, it appears as though you are browsing the web from where the server is located.
So, if you are in Utah, you should connect to a VPN server that is not in Utah, and then navigate to Pornhub as usual. I also recommend using incognito mode while viewing adult content, to prevent explicit URLs from appearing in your browser history and autocomplete options.
Best VPN Services to Use
Most VPN services allow you to select the country where you want your traffic to appear. Some allow you to choose a specific city. Others provide a list of actual servers and their locations for you to choose from.
Pornhub viewers in the United States will prefer to use a VPN server located in the United States. I recommend a VPN service that at least allows you to choose servers in a specific state in the U.S. It should be noted that latency will increase and browsing speeds will decrease when using a VPN, and the effect will be more pronounced the further the server is from you.
Proton VPN, awarded the Best VPN Service by PCMag, shows the actual cities and servers available to clients. It also offers an excellent free VPN, but server options will be more limited – there are servers in the United States, but you cannot specify which server to use. Fortunately, there is no time limit or data cap for the free version.
Another good option is TunnelBear VPN, which also won the Best VPN Service award from PCMag. This service is very user-friendly and allows you to select specific cities within the U.S. and Canada. TunnelBear VPN also has a free VPN, but you will be limited to 500 MB of bandwidth per month. If you share information online about TunnelBear VPN, this cap can be raised to 1.5 GB per month.
Other services that have earned the Best VPN Service award and allow you to choose cities include IVPN, Mullvad VPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark VPN. It should be noted that both IVPN and Mullvad VPN use an account number system that protects privacy and requires very little personal information, and both accept cash sent to their headquarters for a nearly anonymous experience.
Consider the Bigger Issues
Now that you can (potentially) bypass the Pornhub ban and perhaps (assuming any risks and no liability from PCMag) the age requirements in Utah, I encourage you to pay attention to the reasons behind this.
Many states have laws requiring individuals to verify their age with a government-issued ID before visiting certain websites – usually adult sites. When I wrote about a similar law in Louisiana, I stated that it could not be enforced, is likely to create opportunities for phishing and identity theft, and is also based on false premises. From the article referencing the text of Louisiana law: we should always be skeptical of vague arguments like “think of the children” – especially when it comes to privacy – but there are many terms in the legislation that raise doubts. “Sex addiction” is not a real thing, as Mashable noted in an excellent article. The word “may” in “pornography may also affect brain development” does a lot of heavy lifting.
If
You valued the free and open internet where adults can agree to access any legal content they wish, away from the state-supported stereotype, so do more things instead of just unblocking Pornhub. Contact your local lawmakers and tell them not to support such laws.
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