Pornhub, Other Sites to Block Australia Over Age Verification

Age verification is set to come into force in Australia and porn websites are opting to restrict use.

If there is one thing I’ve been finding to be quite stark is how it’s the porn websites that are more interested in protecting users personal information than pretty much every other kind of website out there. Indeed, as other platforms like Facebook, Bluesky, Discord, and others either just don’t give a flying fuck about their users personal information or even going so far as to practically fall over each other trying to throw their users under the bus over age verification, it’s sites like Pornhub that are willing to block whole countries over these laws that would put at least the user base that lives in that region at risk. For other sites, at most, I hear about how they are “assessing” the situation but no real discussions about blocking countries when they go completely insane in implementing age verification laws.

There is little doubt that age verification technology in and of itself is dangerous for all involved. After all, after Discord swore that you information won’t even leave your device, an experiment with Persona led to a huge data leak that exposed a massive user profiling operation. Shortly after, as if to further prove the point that “age verification” is really just short-hand for “mass state sponsored surveillance”, US regulator, the FTC, announced that it would turn a blind eye to violations of privacy law, COPPA, if the collection of personal information happened for age verification purposes. A move that pretty much telegraphed to the world that they won’t stand idly by and let pesky little privacy laws get in the way of collecting your personal information.

So, as the Australian age verification laws inch closer to coming into force, platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Bluesky are enforcing age verification, sites like Pornhub are taking a different approach. They are saying that they will begin blocking Australia in response to age verification, citing privacy concerns. From the Guardian:

A number of adult websites have begun blocking users in Australia in preparation for new codes requiring age verification from Monday.

Guardian Australia has confirmed RedTube, YouPorn, and Tube8 all had notices on their sites when visited from an Australian IP address on Friday stating they are “not currently accepting new account registrations in your region”.

The news was first reported by Crikey.

From Monday, adult sites, among a range of other services including AI companion chatbots and app stores will be required to implement age verification for users attempting to access pornography, extremely violent material or self-harm content.

The Australian online safety regulator has warned that platforms that are not in compliance with the codes could face fines of up to $49.5m per breach.

The parent company of the sites restricting access, Aylo, said the company would be in compliance with the law – including on Pornhub, the largest porn site in the world.

“Aylo’s video sharing platforms will be restricting access to adult material before the deadline on March 9th,” the spokesperson said. “Australia is following a similar approach to the UK, which all our evidence shows does not effectively protect minors, and instead creates harms relating to data privacy and exposure to illegal content on non-compliant platforms.”

Other sites have not yet implemented any restrictions. Pornhub was still accessible to Australian users on Friday, and users could sign up for new accounts, but Aylo’s statement indicated that is likely to change in the coming days.

Wouldn’t it be nice if other platforms followed suit with all of this? If the platforms and other related services affected by the law would collectively stand up for user privacy, then this would’ve put enormous pressure on countries like Australia to abandon their harmful age verification laws. Instead, the other platforms just gave a collective shrug with one famously saying “this is the world that we live in“. Hey, if your personal information winds up in the hands of hackers because of a failure to secure such a sensitive database (and securing something like that is an impossible ask, let’s be real here), well, that’s your problem, not mine. Gotta look out for numero uno and you ain’t it.

At any rate, it’s at least heart warming someone out there actually cares about your personal information these days. It’s both funny and tragic that it’s the porn websites that actually seems to care about these things. While the collective failure of large platforms to take a stand on this issue reduces these moves to a symbolic one (at least until the breaches happen), if things go sideways, it’s the porn websites that end up looking good here.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.