JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Beginning in 2025, a widely used adult website will be banned in the state of Florida.
Pornhub will restrict access to Florida residents in response to the state’s new law requiring age verification for individuals over 18 to access adult sites.
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Those who live in Florida and go onto the website before next year will be greeted with “You will lose access to PornHub in 14 days.”
According to our sister station WKMG, “Pornhub’s parent company, Alyo, told News 6 they are proactively restricting access to users in the state. The site references the Online Protection for Minors, or HB3, law that goes into effect Jan. 1, 2025.”
Earlier this year, Florida passed a law regulating children’s use of social media. The new law, which takes effect on January 1, 2025, specifies that age verification will be required for “online access to materials harmful to minors.”
The Florida law states that if a site fails to comply, it may face fines of up to $50,000 per violation and additional costs.
In March, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation banning children’s access to social media platforms. This law also mandates that pornographic and sexually explicit websites implement age-verification measures to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate content.
Pornhub X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, account stated, “Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB? As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. You’ll be required to prove you are 18 years of age or older, such as by uploading your government ID for every adult content website you’d like to access.”
“We don’t want minors accessing our site and think preventing that from happening is a good thing. But putting everybody’s privacy at risk won’t achieve that.”
What’s in the bill?
- Children under 14 cannot have social media accounts
- Minors 14 or 15 years of age can have social media accounts only with parental permission
- Unless a parent or guardian has provided consent, social media platforms must terminate any accounts held by someone 14 or 15 years old
- Social media platforms must use a third-party verification method on new accounts
- Any personal information used in that age verification process cannot be saved and they must protect any identifying information used to verify age from illegal access
- Any website that has “material harmful to minors” to verify that all users are 18 or older
Florida isn’t the only state; in March of 2024, Pornhub chose to block Texas residents.