(LifeSiteNews) — Pornhub, the world’s largest pornography website, announced it will cease operations in four additional states this summer rather than agree to age verification laws that are aimed at protecting minors from exposure to explicit online content.
The scandal-plagued pornography company said in a blog post that over the past year it has “had to make the difficult decision to block access to users in numerous American states due to newly passed Age Verification laws.”
In addition to Texas, Utah, Arkansas, Virginia, Montana, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Kentucky, where the website has already ceased operations, the company explained that “in July 2024, we will unfortunately be blocking several more states who are introducing similar laws,” including Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, and Nebraska.
Pornhub, which has been found to host child sexual exploitation material and sexual trafficking and assault videos, claimed that the age verification laws “puts users’ privacy at risk” – “privacy” to watch such material.
“The world’s biggest porn site would rather stop doing business than prevent kids from watching,” said conservative commentator and author Michael Knowles, responding to the news. “Quite telling!”
The world’s biggest porn site would rather stop doing business than prevent kids from watching. Quite telling! https://t.co/AInI9Knb5B
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) June 20, 2024
“Pornhub has decided that age verification laws damage their business model to such an extent that it is better for them to simply block entire states rather than comply with the law,” wrote LifeSiteNews commentator Jonathan Van Maren earlier this year.
“The level of self-righteous deceit here is ironic considering the fact that, as per the New York Times, Pornhub was recently forced to admit that it has profited from sex trafficking,” he continued. “It’s a headline Pornhub has been trying to avoid for some time: ‘Pornhub’s Parent Company Admits to Profiting From Sex Trafficking.’
“This comes as no surprise to those of us who have been reporting on the pornography industry for years,” added Van Maren.
After Louisiana enacted its Age Verification law, the company saw an 80% drop in traffic in the state.
READ: Major pornography website to cease operations in Kentucky due to age verification law
Pornhub calls on users to ‘fight against’ laws designed to protect children
Pornhub is nothing less than an online video pornography Leviathan, reaching into homes and the lives of minors around the world and across the U.S.
In May, the site racked up a total of 5.49 billion visits globally, and with over 1.1 billion visits in the U.S., was ranked #10 nationally for online traffic. It’s not unusual for the pornography goliath’s website to reach over 10 billion total global monthly visits.
Meanwhile, Pornhub is encouraging users “to stand up” for their ability to watch explicit content and to “fight against” age verification laws.
While urging watchers to “be loud, be vocal,” the website said nothing about persuading minors to stay away from pornography.
On the contrary, Pornhub urged “Don’t give up! We know that normalizing sex work and sexual expression is an uphill battle, but it can be done.”
‘Ten percent of pornography views are by children under the age of 10’
A Common Sense Media report released last year found “73% of teen respondents aged 13 to 17 have watched pornography online — and more than half (54%) reported first seeing pornography by the time they reached the age of 13.” Another study found that “10% of pornography views are by children under the age of 10.”
LifeSiteNews journalist Ashley Sanders reported in March:
Lawmakers, religious leaders, and others have consistently raised the alarm about the serious implications of widespread pornography consumption, particularly among young people. To date, more than a dozen states have declared pornography use to be a public health crisis as research demonstrates its negative psychological, social, and physical impacts.
Pornography, which the Catholic Church teaches “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act” and “does grave injury to the dignity of its participants,” has also been shown to warp the neural pathways of children and adults, contribute to high divorce rates, facilitate the international sex-trafficking industry, and trigger sexual dysfunction and gender confusion.