WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) -- Pornhub is blocking access to people living in the Sunshine State.
In a statement from Aylo, the parent site to Pornhub, it will block access in the state of Florida on Jan. 1 when the bill Online for Protections for Minors aka HB 3 comes into effect.
"Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.," said Aylo in an emailed statement.
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The parent company to Pornhub said that in Louisiana, the adult site complied with its state law, however; it didn't stop people from looking for porn. Aylo states, it just made people travel to the dark corners of the internet making the internet more dangerous to adults and children.
"The best solution to make the internet safer, preserve user privacy, and prevent children from accessing adult content is performing age verification at the source: on the device. The technology to accomplish this exists today. What is required is the political and social will to make it happen. We are eager to be part of this solution and are happy to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution. Aylo said.
Florida isn't the state where access to the website has been blocked. States including, Virginia, Montana, North Carolina, Arkansas, Utah, Mississippi, Texas, Nebraska, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Alabama and Oklahoma also have access blocked.
The new bill that was approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March would regulate social media platforms to prevent minors younger than 14 from entering into contracts with social media platforms to become account holders. The bill continues, will also allow for minors who are 14 or 15 years of age to become account holders but only with the consent of a parent or guardian.