Because of rules that require proof of age, Pornhub is leaving five more states.

Because of new laws that require adult entertainment websites to check users’ ages, Pornhub will shut down in five more states this summer. The move comes after a wave of new laws that require pornographic websites and other sites with sexual content for adults to get proof that their users are of legal age. In all of these states, people who want to use sites like Pornhub would have to share a picture of their driver’s license or another form of official ID or sign up with a third-party service that verifies people’s age.

According to a blog post from Pornhub, the most recent places where it has shut down are Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska. The site said that it would no longer do business in those states in July 2024. The website closed down last week in Texas. Because of similar state laws, it has also blocked entry in Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.

Lawmakers in these states who backed laws that checked people’s ages said that the rules would keep kids from seeing inappropriate material. Like, the Kentucky bill talked about pornography as a “public health crisis” that hurts kids and has a “corroding influence.”

Aylo, the company that owns Pornhub, has said that these rules are unfair because they violate users’ privacy and might not stop kids from seeing explicit material. Last year, Louisiana passed a rule similar to this one, and Aylo kept running with a government-backed age verification service. As a result, Pornhub traffic in Louisiana dropped by 80%.

He told the Indiana Capital Chronicle, “These people never quit looking for porn.” “They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to confirm age, that don’t obey the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even average content.” Instead of state laws to keep kids off of sites just for adults, the company keeps a device-based age verification system.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also brought up privacy concerns about these bills, pointing out that there is no foolproof way to prove someone’s age. Everyone should be able to use free services without having to show their driver’s license. “That’s why EFF is against laws that require proof of age, no matter how well-meaning they may be,” the group said in a statement in 2023.

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