Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that he has filed a lawsuit against a major pornography distribution company for allegedly violating a state law that requires age verification measures to protect minors from being exposed to obscene sexual materials online.
The Texas law in question, HB 1181, came into effect in Sept. 2023, and requires websites hosting adult content to verify whether a user is 18 years or older.
The statute also requires that pornography websites include warnings of “the harms associated with viewing such material, including potential addiction, impaired brain development and function, and other emotional and mental illnesses.”
Under the law, any corporation found to be in violation of the age verification requirement will be subject to civil penalties of up to $10,000 per day.
Paxton’s lawsuit seeks an injunction against Aylo Global Entertainment, the adult entertainment conglomerate behind major pornography websites such as Pornhub, Redtube, and YouPorn, that would require the company’s sites to comply with age verification requirement.
The lawsuit accuses Aylo Global of “knowingly and intentionally publishing or distributing sexual material harmful to minors without implementing reasonable age verification methods, and without displaying certain sexual materials health warnings on the landing page of its internet website.”
Paxton is also seeking potentially millions of dollars in civil penalties, as his suit alleges Aylo Global has failed to comply with the age verification statue every day since Sept. 19, 2023.
In November 2023, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Paxton and allowed the State of Texas to enforce the law against pornography sites.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the law, saying it “burdens the free speech rights of all users who seek to access the regulated sites, robbing them of anonymity and chilling privacy- and security-minded people from accessing the sites at all.”
