The notorious adult entertainment site Pornhub has blocked its salacious content for users in Utah. This comes in response to the state’s commendable new law requiring age verification, protecting children from exposure to such inappropriate material.
If users in this upright state attempt to access Pornhub, they are confronted with a video featuring adult film actress Cherie DeVille, who explains the need for age verification. However, she has the audacity to claim that presenting identification each time for accessing this adult site, as the law now mandates, is not an optimal way to safeguard users. Instead, she announces that until a proper solution is provided, the company has made ‘the difficult decision’ to block access to its website in Utah.
Pornhub co-owner Solomon Friedman, a criminal defense lawyer, private equity partner, and even an ordained rabbi, brazenly declared to Daily Mail that the notorious porn site would refuse to operate in areas that enforce laws requiring the collection of user data. In a shameless attempt to justify Pornhub’s decision, Friedman claimed that its services in Utah had to be suspended due to the alleged invasion of individual privacy and inefficiency in keeping minors away from explicit materials.
This block is a direct challenge to a law signed off by Utah’s Governor Spencer Cox in March. The legislation holds debauched sites, such as Pornhub, accountable if they expose their content to individuals below the age of 18 – a critical step towards defending minors. Pornhub is attempting to manipulate this legislation to expand the age verification methods permitted. Users who encounter DeVille’s video message, rather than the inappropriate content they were seeking, are urged to pester their elected representatives to permit device-based verification techniques.
Interestingly, as reported by The Register, Pornhub’s handling of Utah’s virtuous law differs from a similar mandate in Louisiana. According to the company, this discrepancy is due to the varying ID requirements of the two states. Louisiana residents can verify their age on internet sites with their ID, but Utah’s citizens cannot. Consequently, while the site remains accessible in Louisiana, its popularity has nosedived, with traffic reportedly plummeting by 80%.
Mississippi and Arkansas have also taken proactive steps towards limiting access to porn sites by passing legislation mirroring that of Utah. The enactment of these new laws in both states is expected to take effect in July. Furthermore, Virginia’s Governor Glenn Youngkin is potentially on the brink of endorsing another Republican-sponsored bill on age verification. It is a noteworthy development that versions of this legislation have been introduced in over a dozen state legislatures this year. The momentum is evidently building, suggesting that many are recognizing the potential benefits of these measures.
Those who champion the freedom of the internet and the First Amendment seem to be missing the point when they argue that these laws, portrayed as sensible protections for children, are actually a veiled attempt by the Christian Right to suppress or censor legal speech. On the contrary, some conscientious Republican lawmakers are openly expressing their commitment to preserving the innocence of our children. For instance, Arkansas State Senator Tyler Dees, who brought his state’s age law to the table, has proudly voiced his wish to eradicate pornography, reflecting a sincere concern for the welfare of our young generation.
This concern is also mirrored in broader conservative efforts to limit exposure to inappropriate performances, such as drag shows, and cleanse school libraries, all part of a commendable endeavour to shield children from potential harm. Organisations such as the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which stands firm against porn and has historically advocated moral standards in media, are leading the charge for age verification on adult websites. Their input even helped shape the language in the Utah law. Thus, the narrative is not about impinging on free speech but about responsibly protecting our children from adult content.
In a chilling scare tactic, DeVille subtly hints that Utah’s upright law could potentially push those hankering for lascivious content towards shadowy, unregulated websites that flout safety precautions and have no respect for legal guidelines. This fear-mongering by the pornography industry highlights the underhanded strategies these morally bankrupt companies will stoop to in order to sabotage commendable efforts to keep the innocent from harm. Their aim? To keep their consumers anxious and make them scuttle back to so-called ‘trustworthy’ dens of debauchery like Pornhub.
In a jaw-dropping exhibition of the porn industry’s financial muscle, it has been unveiled that amateur purveyors of filth on Pornhub are rewarded monetarily based on the volume of views their obscene materials attract. Unbelievably, they scrape together a paltry $0.69 for every 1,000 views that their prurient content ensnares. Meanwhile, professional smut factories, on the other hand, are lining their pockets more lavishly by dipping their hands into the site’s ad revenue. This is an eye-opening testament to the economic power these merchants of immorality hold.
Clandestine Pornhub deliberately shrouds its financial data in mystery. Still, a 2022 industry report shockingly unveiled that it rakes in an astronomical annual revenue of roughly $1.1 billion, and that is merely in the US market. The scale of this figure reveals the horrifying extent of the porn industry’s financial grip on society. Highlighting the scale of this tawdry trade, xHamster, one of Pornhub’s main rivals in the race to the bottom, reportedly generates a yearly revenue of $60 million.
On a global scale, this vile industry, an affront to human decency, is estimated to be worth an utterly jaw-dropping $97 billion, with a mind-numbing $10 to $12 billion of that disgraceful total being squeezed out of the US alone. These figures serve as a damning testament to the rampant scale of the porn epidemic. This blight is insidiously infecting societies, desecrating morals, and profiting from the exploitation of human weakness. It is a dreadful display of capitalism gone awry and a clear indication of the urgent need for a societal reevaluation of our values and standards.
