VPNs are the answer, and they’re easy to get. It took us only about two minutes to get set up on one and start scrolling Pornhub again ... for research purposes, naturally.
According to Google Trends, searches for the term “free VPN” shot up some 950% since last week when Pornhub pulled its services from the state. We don’t think this is a coincidence. Searches for “best VPN for iPhone” also shot up 350%.
So, what’s a VPN and how do you use one? According to Forbes, a VPN is a virtual private network that gives you more security when browsing the internet wherever you are. A VPN can make you virtually untraceable by blocking your IP address, identity and data, thereby keeping your online activity safe. It can also mask where you’re searching from, which will come in handy if you want to watch videos on Pornhub in Texas.
As pcmag.com explains, when you switch on a VPN, your internet traffic is encrypted and routed to a server operated by the VPN company, again, masking your IP address and true location.
We went with NordVPN. (We swear, this isn’t an ad for the company. It was just the one we were most familiar with.) While we got NordVPN, these steps can be used for other VPN services. NordVPN makes it easy, with different monthly or yearly plans on offer. We paid for a month, which came out to a little over $14 after taxes and fees. From there, you make an account and download the VPN software to your computer or phone.“Unfortunately, the Texas law for age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous." – Pornhub
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If you’re in the U.S., a map of the country will pop up once you open the VPN application, showing you locations of different servers. As long as you’re connected to one of the servers outside of Texas, you can access Pornhub or any of Aylo’s adult content sites, such as Brazzers or men.com. (The company has also blocked access from Virginia, Montana, North Carolina, Arkansas, Utah and Mississippi, all states with similar age-verification laws, according to The Washington Post.)
During the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed House Bill 1181, requiring porn sites to verify the ages of their users. This is supposedly meant to prevent minors from accessing the sites. The law also stipulates penalties of up to $250,000 if a minor accesses sexual material on these sites. It will also fine sites $10,000 each day they don’t implement age verification measures. The purpose of the bill sounds reasonable enough, right? That’s until you realize that every time you access one of these sites, you’ll have to give up personal identifying information to verify your age.
Pornhub doesn’t want you to have to do that. So, according to The Dallas Morning News, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the company in February for $1.6 million, saying it wasn’t abiding by the new law. The porn trade group Free Speech Coalition also sued the state over the law before it could take effect last September. According to the News, a federal judge in Austin ruled that the law ran afoul of the First Amendment. Paxton appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and won, allowing the law to take effect. That’s when Pornhub and other Aylo companies pulled out. The 5th Circuit, however, upheld an injunction by the lower court against a separate section of the law that requires porn sites to display public health warnings on their landing pages and all advertisements.
Now, all the sites have the same message.
“As you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” the company’s message on the sites reads. “Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors.”
The company says safety and compliance are at the forefront of its mission, but “providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk.”
Trying to mandate age verification without thorough and effective enforcement will lead to some platforms complying while others don’t. The message said, “As we've seen in other states, such bills have failed to protect minors, by driving users from those few websites which comply, to the hundreds of thousands of websites with far fewer safety measures in place, which do not comply.”
This can already be seen in Texas, where other porn sites are still easily accessible without age verification.
“Unfortunately, the Texas law for age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous,” the message said. “Not only will it not actually protect children, but it will also inevitably reduce content creators’ ability to post and distribute legal adult content and directly impact their ability to share the artistic messages they want to convey with it.”
The company said it believes the only way to protect adults and minors alike is to verify users’ ages on their devices themselves. From there, people can deny or allow access to age-restricted sites. “Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas,” the company’s message said. “In doing so, we are complying with the law, as we always do, but hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.”
