Porn Privacy Is Under Attack – Affects Youth and Adult Rights Alike 

In three states, Mississippi, Virginia, and Utah, Pornhub has completely banned user access due to mandatory online ID checks that are supposed to prevent minors under 18 from accessing content. Websites complying with regulations, like xHamster, require users to upload a picture of their photo ID and face. While I think porn can be harmful to minors, and while restricting under-18s from porn might sound like a good idea, doing so via digital age verification laws has broad implications for youth and adults alike.

For example, such laws end up restricting access for all users as there is no effective way for companies like Pornhub to enforce the law without registering their users’ data. Even so, many states and political commentators continue advocating for these age verification laws. David French wrote in early September in the New York Times that “Congress should try once again to clean up the internet the way cities cleaned up their red-light districts. The law must do what it can to restrict access to pornography for children online.”

Mr. French and others seem to have forgotten about the First Amendment right to free expression, which protects porn consumption. They also seem not to care about the Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy. Asking people to include a picture of themselves and their ID every time they watch porn can help gather information about specific individuals and the content they watch, a clear infringement on the privacy rights of citizens. More specifically, laws against porn consumption target youth under 18, encouraging them to watch porn on websites with even more nonconsensual videos than Pornhub or to engage in illegal activities like obtaining a scannable fake ID that could pass a digital age verification test. Such laws might also encourage minors to interact with adult strangers to gain access to sites that comply, endangering their privacy and safety.

To be sure, Pornhub is no angel. The company has been sued for profiting from non-consensual videos. Still, Pornhub is more content-moderated than other websites. It’s not a good idea to push teenagers and adults alike to watch porn on potentially more hazardous websites. But that is exactly what these laws are doing in the states where they’ve been passed. Pornhub claims that when a Louisiana ID verification law came into effect and the site complied, limiting access to individuals who could prove they were over 18 via digital age verification, their traffic in the state dropped by 80 percent since users “just migrated to other corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.” 

This is why the legal precedent on age verification is quite clear. Since 1969, porn consumption has been protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments per the Supreme Court’s ruling in Stanley v. Georgia. The Supreme Court has since upheld the right for individuals to access internet porn free from age verification laws, in Reno v. ACLU and Ashcroft v. ACLU.

Even so, states continue to pass laws that infringe on the right to watch porn, and commentators like Mr. French seem to believe that these laws are not the egregious constitutional violations that they are. How can we have so little respect for privacy and free expression just because we feel that we’re protected youth?

If we’re so concerned about youth accessing porn – and make no mistake, I do think there is substantial merit to this concern – let’s do what works. Porn sites already try to prevent minors from accessing their content through pop-ups that make users verify that they are over 18 . Of course this self-attestation does not stop all teenagers from accessing porn, in the same way that teenagers still drink alcohol and vape. However, such age verification pop-ups ensure that teenagers are informed that they will be accessing content that is not meant for their age group. They are especially beneficial in deterring younger children from porn. I would know. I mistakenly went onto Pornhub when I was eleven, saw the pop-up, and closed the website. I knew that I was a far cry from turning 18, and so that whatever content was there, it was not for me. Some curious kids might still attest that they’re over 18, but most younger children will probably close the tab in panic.

On the legal front, the war on porn is losing. Judge David Ezra on September 1^st struck down a Texas law aiming to implement an ID verification requirement because, as Mr. Ezra explained, “it deters adults’ access to legal sexually explicit material, far beyond the interest of protecting minors.” Mr. Ezra is right. Americans’ constitutional rights are coming under attack by states that seek to infringe on the privacy of their citizens under the banner of protecting children. In trying to deter youth from porn, we shouldn’t abandon our First and Fourteenth Amendments.

So yes, I actually agree with Mr. French that porn is harmful to minors. I would even go further to say that it is potentially harmful to all consumers, including adults. However, unlike conservative commentators like Mr. French and states that have little respect for constitutional rights, I do not believe that my opinion should be legislated. No adult should have to compromise their privacy by including a picture of themselves and their ID on a porn site, especially when data breaches are still a real problem and hackers could access information like one’s date of birth, home address, etc; no teenager should have to jump through hoops to watch porn on sites that are even worse than Pornhub. There’s freedom on the internet, and that freedom should be respected whether we like content on the internet or not.