MIAMI – Floridians have lost access to Pornhub.com, the world’s most popular adult entertainment website and 16th-most-visited site of any kind in the world. 

Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, said it opted to block access to its site in Florida rather than comply with a new state law that will take effect on Jan. 1, 2025, that requires age verification to make stopovers on platforms.  

The law, known as HB 3, was passed by the Florida Legislature in March. Last month, an industry organization representing the adult entertainment industry filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn it.

Users who visit the site will find a video with the following message:

“As you probably know, your elected officials in Florida ask us to determine your age before allowing you to access our website. While security and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, please provide your ID card whenever you need it. make a stopover in an adult. The platform is not the most effective solution for our users, and in fact, it will endanger young people and their privacy.

“In addition, mandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply.

“As we’ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place. Very few sites are able to compare to the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place. To protect children and user privacy, any legislation must be enforced against all platforms offering adult content.

“The protection of our users is one of our biggest concerns. For us, the most productive and effective solution to protect young people and adults is to identify users through their device and allow them access to age-restricted websites and Internet sites based on this identity. Until a genuine solution is provided, we have made the difficult decision to absolutely disable access to our online page at Florida. Array

“Contact your representatives before it’s too late and ask for device-based verification responses that make the Internet safer while respecting your privacy. “

Before 2025, Pornhub blocked access in 14 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Like Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina were added Wednesday and Georgia will become the 18th state to require age verification to access pornographic websites in July, according to 404media.

Pornhub, which launched in 2007, saw more than 11.4 billion visits from global users in January 2024, according to Statista. Approximately 97% of traffic to Pornhub.com came from mobile devices.

According to similarweb, Pornhub is Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, X. com, Wikipedia, Chatgpt, Reddit, Yahoo, Amazon, Yandex. ru, Baidu, TikTok, Netflix, Microsoftonline, Bing.

The other sites have announced any plans for the law.  

The blocking is based upon on your virtual private proxy, or VPN.

Under HB 3, approved by bipartisan parties and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 25, sites that offer adult content “must provide anonymous age verification and popular age verification. “

“Apparently, you can have a child in space safely, and then you have predators that can come right into your own home,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville. “You can do everything right, but they know how to do it. “obtain and manipulate those other platforms. ” 

DeSantis vetoed the version earlier this year, raising legal and parental rights concerns.  

Former House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, who worked with DeSantis on the legislation, said during the summer: “Adults can do whatever they want, I don’t care. But 8-year-old boys should not be accessing hard-core pornography at that age.”   

“Anonymous” age verification is not provided for in the law, however, the law states that an “independent, non-governmental third party” providing the service cannot retain personally identifiable data and will have to protect it from unauthorized access.  

Under the terms of the legislation, House Bill 3, websites hosting pornographic content can be fined up to $50,000 for each violation, along with attorney fees and the potential for civil liability if don’t enforce the age verification requirement.