LOS ANGELES—Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub.com, issued a letter Tuesday to dozens of elected officials and lawmakers across the United States reiterating that it views age verification laws and technology as an ineffective means to protect minors on the internet. Recipients of the letter, simply signed by Pornhub, include state lawmakers, governors and attorneys general in states where age verification laws are being enforced.
"We are writing to you because, as a community, we are deeply concerned about the harm being caused by the performative, ineffective, and unenforceable age verification laws you have taken part in passing despite your intention of protecting minors," the letter reads.
"Everyone subjected to these laws is more at risk than ever before of encountering online harm," it goes on. Other points outlined in the letter include a pitch of Aylo’s institutional position that age verification can only be an effective tool to keep minors off of its sites when device-based verification is adopted.
The letter states, "You have the power and the responsibility to mandate operating system providers like Apple, Microsoft and Google to render all mobile phones, tablets and computers child safe by enabling parental controls at the source and by default." Note that device based age-gating remains controversial across the online adult entertainment industry, but pragmatic approaches are being considered far more widely as the internet shifts toward a state of child-proofing. For example, Aylo said that is saw successful implementation with age verification at the device-level or operating system-level when Apple deployed an iOS update that showed successful verification.
The age verification laws adopted in the United States, overwhelmingly by right-wing state governments, are easily circumvented and carry punitive punishments in some cases.
For example, an adult website owner could be charged with a felony in Tennessee for failing to comply with age verification requirements in the state’s digital space.
Other approaches to age verification laws also feature heavy civil penalties that are enforced by unaccountable private parties through civil enforcement actions brought in state and federal courts. Utah is one such case, where private parties are permitted by state law to bring age verification claims to a court setting alleging supposed injury.
Lawsuits brought by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation group in Kansas were similar. Those cases, however, have been dismissed for lack of legal standing and jurisdictional issues.
"We can no longer accept laws that create the appearance of action while failing to address the challenge of keeping kids safe online," the letter declares. "It is particularly concerning when these laws drive regulated business out of your jurisdictions and aid in creating a lush market for bad actors online, when a viable solution exists today."
Aylo refers to its actions of cutting off access to its platforms in over half of the U.S. states. Those geoblocks are easily beaten by using most mainstream virtual private networks and proxy server systems.
Read the full letter here.
