Porn Age Verification Laws: What Changed, Where Pornhub Is Blocked and What It Means

In this guide

• Where I stand
• The first law: Louisiana, 2023
• The Supreme Court decision: Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
• The map: where Pornhub is blocked
• The UK: the Online Safety Act and what the data shows
• Australia, France and beyond
• The privacy problem
• What this means for performers and creators
• What I think should happen

Let me start with where I stand, because this topic gets political fast. Minors should not be watching porn. On that, there is no debate from me. Everyone who works on a professional set has their age checked and recorded by law, as I explained in what consent really looks like on a porn set. Asking that viewers be adults too makes sense.

The question is how. And in the last few years, the answer from lawmakers has changed the industry I work in more than almost anything else.

The first law: Louisiana, 2023

The modern wave started in 2023, when Louisiana passed an age-verification law for adult websites. Pornhub complied, and, according to the company as reported by PCMag, saw its traffic in the state drop by approximately 80%. Pornhub’s argument, which it still repeats, is that “people didn’t stop consuming porn overnight”; they “moved to pirate, illegal, or other non-compliant sites that don’t ask visitors to verify their age” (PCMag).

After that, state after state followed. Texas passed House Bill 1181 in 2023, requiring age verification for websites where more than a third of the content is “harmful to minors.” The Free Speech Coalition, the industry’s trade association, sued.

The Supreme Court decision

That lawsuit went all the way to the top. On June 27, 2025, in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the US Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the Texas law was constitutional (Supreme Court opinion).

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion. The key point was legal but important: the Court applied intermediate scrutiny, not the stricter test used in earlier internet cases, and found that the law only incidentally burdened adults’ protected speech while serving the state’s interest in protecting children. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent, arguing that the law should have faced strict scrutiny because it burdens speech that adults have a right to see (Oyez; Wikipedia).

This was a big change. In earlier cases such as Reno v. ACLU (1997) and Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004), the Court had struck down federal attempts to restrict online porn. After Paxton, states have a clear green light.

I support keeping minors away from porn. What worries me is a system where adults hand their ID to thousands of websites, and the sites that follow the rules lose their audience to the ones that do not.

The map: where Pornhub is blocked

Instead of collecting ID from every visitor, Aylo, the company behind Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube, decided to block access in states with these laws. As of PCMag’s update on October 22, 2026, Aylo blocked 25 US states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

A few details from the same report:

• Ohio has an age-verification law, but Pornhub is not blocked there, because Aylo says the law does not apply to its type of service. Lawmakers are working on a bill to close that gap.
• Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, vetoed an age-verification bill, calling it an “intrusion into the personal privacy” of residents.
• These blocks are company decisions in protest of the laws, not government bans on Pornhub.

The UK: the Online Safety Act and what the data shows

The United Kingdom went further. Under the Online Safety Act, from 25 July 2025 porn providers must use “highly effective” age checks, such as facial age estimation or credit card checks, enforced by the regulator Ofcom (Wikipedia: Online Safety Act 2023).

The UK is interesting because there is real data. According to Ofcom, reported by The Guardian (Guardian, December 2025):

• Pornhub had 9.8 million UK visitors in August 2025, a decline of 1.5 million compared with August 2024.
• Similarweb figures given to the Guardian showed 7.2 million unique visitors to Pornhub in November, down 36% compared with August 2024.
• Visits to Xvideos and Chaturbate fell by 27% and 18% respectively over the same period.
• VPN use more than doubled, from about 650,000 users to a peak of more than 1.4 million in mid-August, before falling back to around 900,000.

Pornhub said in October 2025 that its UK traffic was down 77% since July. Then Aylo announced that, from 2 February 2026, only users who had already verified their age would keep access in the UK; new users would be blocked. Aylo’s Alex Kekesi said the system had “diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet.” Ofcom replied that porn services “have a choice between using age checks to protect users as required under the Act, or to block access,” and said it had opened investigations into more than 80 porn sites and fined one provider £1 million (Guardian, January 2026).

Australia, France and beyond

The same pattern is spreading. PCMag reports that Aylo also blocked access in France, and in Australia after age-verification requirements for websites took effect on March 9, 2026, about a month after the UK change. In other words, by late 2026 Pornhub was blocked in half the United States and three countries.

The privacy problem

This is the part that worries me most, as someone who cares about both performers and viewers. Age verification usually means handing sensitive information, a face scan, an ID, a credit card, to a website or a third-party company. Wisconsin’s governor made exactly this argument in his veto.

Data breaches happen. A list of names linked to adult site visits is about the most sensitive data that exists. A system that only works if adults trust thousands of different websites with their identity has a weak point built into it.

There is also the displacement problem. Big, regulated sites verify their uploaders, moderate content and respond to takedown requests. Many of the small sites that do not comply do none of that. If traffic moves from the first group to the second, children are not necessarily safer, and the content they find may be worse.

What this means for performers and creators

People forget that there are workers on the other side. When traffic to legal, compliant platforms falls, performers and studios earn less, and piracy sites that never paid anyone gain. This is happening at the same time as many performers are moving to creator platforms, which have their own ID checks for creators. I explain how that side works in how OnlyFans works.

It also adds to the stigma. Every headline about “blocking porn” makes it easier for banks, payment processors and platforms to treat everyone in the industry as a risk. If you want to understand the economics of the industry, read how much porn stars get paid.

What I think should happen

My opinion: the goal is right, and the method can be better. Many in the industry have argued for age checks at the device or operating system level, so that a phone or computer confirms the user is an adult once, privately, without each website collecting ID. Ofcom itself said there is “nothing to stop technology providers from developing solutions which work at the device level” if they are highly effective.

Until then, the honest advice I can give viewers is simple: use legal, regulated sites, protect your privacy, and if you are a parent, use the parental controls on your children’s devices. And please, do not believe that blocking one website solves the problem. It changes where the traffic goes.

To follow my career, visit maximogarciaworld.com, and for the 18+ side of my work, fuckingpornstars.net. For more on how the business really works, read is porn real? and, on House of Maximo, Traci Lords and the scandal that changed the industry.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Laws change frequently; check the current rules where you live.

Sources

1. Supreme Court of the United States. Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, No. 23-1122 (opinion). June 27, 2025.
2. Oyez. Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton.
3. Wikipedia. Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton.
4. PCMag. Pornhub Access Is Blocked in These 25 States and 3 Countries. Updated October 22, 2026.
5. The Guardian. UK porn traffic down since beginning of age checks but VPN use up, says Ofcom. December 10, 2025.
6. The Guardian. Pornhub to stop new UK users accessing site from next week. January 27, 2026.
7. Wikipedia. Online Safety Act 2023.