Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the parent company of Pornhub for failing to enforce the state’s new law requiring users to verify their age.
According to a report by The Dallas Morning News, the AG’s office is seeking an injunction to force Aylo USA Inc. to add an age verification method that meets the requirements of House Bill 1181, passed last year.
The new law requires pornography sites to verify that their users are at least 18 years old and to display Texas Health and Human Services disclaimers about the potential harms of consuming pornography.
Currently, Pornhub and other sites owned by Aylo, such as Brazzers, TransAngels, and Men.com, only display an age disclaimer where, according to Paxton, the user is asked to “complete the trivial step of clicking an ‘enter’ button,”often displayed along sexual material.
“The age verification methods used by the Defendants on their websites cannot be said to verify anything at all, and wholly fail to comply with the requirements of” state law, Paxton said in the lawsuit.
With the lawsuit, Paxton is seeking to fine Aylo up to $10,000 per day for a total of $1.6 million.
This is the first legal action to enforce HB1181, authored by Rep. Matt Shaheen and sponsored in the Senate by Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton. In addition to the $10,000 per day fines for violating the age verification requirements, companies can also be fined with an additional $10,000 per day if the company retains identifying user information and $250,000 if a child is exposed to pornographic content because of the failure to verify their age.
According to Bloomberg, a district judge blocked the law from taking effect in August, but in November the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered that it could go into effect pending Paxton’s appeal.
“I look forward to holding any company accountable that violates our age verification laws intended to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful, obscene material on the internet,” Paxton said.
