Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has initiated a lawsuit against the owners of Pornhub over their failure to enforce age verification checks for minors. 

In a press release, Paxton accused Aylo Global Entertainment, a major pornography distribution company, of violating HB 1181, which requires pornographic platforms to confirm that minors are not underage. 

The release stated:

Aylo Global runs several of the largest pornography websites that host obscene materials, including Pornhub. Instead of abiding by Texas law requiring purveyors of obscene sexual material to institute age verification systems, the company immediately presents minors who access their websites with pornographic content. Attorney General Paxton is seeking an injunction against Aylo Global to require appropriate age verification safeguards and potentially millions of dollars in civil penalties for failing to abide by the law.

Under the rules of HB 1181, companies that fail to abide by the regulations are liable for fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars, as the release explains:

In November 2023, Attorney General Paxton won a major victory at the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing Texas to enforce the law. Companies violating the age verification requirements will be subject to fines of up to $10,000 per day, an additional $10,000 per day if the corporation illegally retains identifying information, and $250,000 if a child is exposed to pornographic content due to not properly verifying a user’s age.  

Paxton added that looked forward to holding Pornhub accountable. 

“Texas has a right to protect its children from the detrimental effects of pornographic content,” said Paxton. “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.”

Texas legislators approved HB 1181 last year before it was held up via various legal challenges. The legislation requires companies to "use reasonable age verification methods" to "verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older." 

It also demands that those companies provide warnings that pornographic consumption "weakens brain function," "is proven to harm human brain development" and "is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses."

The lawsuit comes as various Republican-controlled states seek to crack down on the porn industry amid a growing body of evidence of the significant harm caused by the industry to both its actors and its customers. 

Such laws have led Pornhub to pull out of states including Utah, Mississippi, and Virginia, potentially driving a dagger through the heart of a website that reportedly receives over 100 million page views every day. Users in these states attempting to access Pornhub are now greeted with a safe-for-work video of pornographic actress Cherie DeVille explaining the site’s decision to cease operations. 

"While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit our platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users," she explains. "Until a solution is found, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in your region."