Two more adult websites are facing lawsuits from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office over accusations they’re not following the state’s age verification law, the latest effort to legally go after internet porn providers.
The Office of the Attorney General filed two civil lawsuits Tuesday afternoon in Travis County against the respective companies that own the websites xHamster and Chaturbate. Paxton said they’re not doing enough to stop those younger than 18 from looking at the adult content.
Paxton’s office would like a court to issue a permanent injunction against the two websites and force them to pay hefty fines if they don’t come into compliance with House Bill 1181, which went into effect on Sept. 1 last year. It requires age verification measures to protect minors from what the law’s supporters called exposure to sexually obscene materials.
KXAN reached out Wednesday afternoon for comment from Hammy Media and Multi Media, the two companies that own the websites in question and are named in the lawsuits. This story will be updated once any responses are shared.
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The state’s latest lawsuit notes visitors to the xHamster website are met with a pop-up message where they have to click a button confirming they’re older than 18. However, Paxton’s office claims that’s not enough to follow the new law.
“Minors can simply click almost anywhere on the webpage away from the ‘I’m 18 or older’ button, including the ‘X’ in the top right corner of the message, to dismiss the pop-up message
and proceed to the Defendant’s pornographic website,” the lawsuit explains. “The age verification methods used by the Defendant on its websites cannot be said to verify anything at all, and they wholly fail to comply with the requirements of Chapter 129B.”The state is asking the court for xHamster to pay a civil penalty of up to $1.67 million as well as an additional $10,000 a day since the lawsuit’s filing.
Texas is seeking a higher civil penalty from the company that owns Chaturbate — $1.78 million along with the $10,000 a day for every day after the filing of the lawsuit.
See here and here for some background. One may reasonably ask, what is the definition of “adult” website that Ken Paxton has in mind as he pursues these lawsuits, and how might that compare with one’s own definition? What’s to stop him from filing suits against, say, sites that host erotic fanfiction like An Archive Of Our Own, or sites that provide sex education to minors like Scarleteen? Or just about any site that primarily hosts LGBTQ+ content? In other words, how will this be different than the plague of attacks on school libraries? Sure, Paxton could run into some losses in court if he pursues this strategy, maybe even get counter-sued in federal court, but look at what these hypothetical defendants would be risking to engage in that fight. How much easier it would be to just make like Pornhub and shut down access in the state.
Especially since the already-existing age verification that xHamster has is deemed insufficient by our new state censor. Sure, other age verification services that might satisfy Texas’ new law exist, but that’s a disruption to their businesses and who even knows if Paxton would accept them. Plus, the law also demands that these sites display a message about how porn is bad and Texas doesn’t approve of it and blah blah blah. This isn’t just about age verification, it’s about compelled speech too. Do we really want this on our Internet? I sure don’t. Get yourself a VPN for until this is over, and fight back. The Current has more.
Where are all the gun nuts that were going to save us from a tyrannical government? Aren’t they the ones that were going to defend our freedom?
K, they are too busy looking for new sites or figuring out what vpn stands for.