Pornhub blocks access in Mississippi and Virginia over age verification laws

Pornhub is now blocking people in Mississippi and Virginia from visiting its website over laws that would require the service to verify their age. The company says it’s blocking users to protest unfair enforcement of these new laws, claiming that sites enforcing the new rules will lose traffic to “irresponsible platforms” that “don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.”

Traffic dropped by 80 percent for Pornhub after it began enforcing age verification in Louisiana earlier this year, the company writes. After that experience, it decided to start taking its sites offline instead of enforcing an age gate. In May, it blocked access to users in Utah over a similar law. Techdirt...

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