Adult Site Restricts Utah Residents Under 18 to Access Its Content

VIVA – One of the world's largest online porn site, Pornhub, announced Utah users are being restricted to access its content because of a new state law.

Starting Wednesday, pornography website will be required to verify that users in Utah are at least 18 years old under SB287, passed unanimously by the 2023. Legislature and signed into law by Governor Spencer Cox.

The law also spells out that such a site that “fails to perform reasonable age verification methods” to ensure users aren’t under 18 years old can be sued for “damages resulting from a minor’s accessing the material.”

The governor welcomed the company’s decision to stop Utahns from using the site.

“In Utah, we care about our kids. The vast majority of Utahns would agree that companies should be held responsible for knowingly distributing pornography to minors,” Cox said.

“The very least we can do as a society is to ask companies to verify the age of those viewing the pornography they produce and distribute. This unanimous, bipartisan legislation provides multiple ways to satisfy that requirement,” he added.

He also said: "However, I fully support Pornhub’s decision to remove their content in Utah.”

Pornhub was described in a New York Times opinion piece in 2020 as a company that monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content.

The piece featured a young woman who said her life was changed after videos she made for a boyfriend at age 14 were posted to the site. Last year, the law firm representing her said Visa suspended ad payments on Pornhub and other sites owned by MindGeek.

Age verification for online pornography sites was also imposed in Germany last year, and the United Kingdom is expected to do the same.

Pornhub posted a message on its site to Utah users, asking them to contact their lawmakers before it is too late about the new requirement and “demand device-based verification solutions that make the internet safer while also respecting your privacy.”

The message, which is accompanied by a video, claims “giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk." 

Instead, the company said “the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification."