“We got scarlet letters: “PornHub is pulling out of Texas, impacting adult content creators’ paychecks.”

HOUSTON – Adult content creators are sounding the alarm after Texas was banned for months from the world’s largest pornography website: PornHub.

The decision was made by PornHub’s parent company, Aylo, in response to the state of Texas’ decision to force websites to verify the age of visitors to their site.

The ruling is known as Texas House Bill 1181. It amounts to restricting sexual material on the Internet for minors. The method: Check your age at every visit.

“This not only impinges on the right of adults to access protected speech, but also fails to meet strict scrutiny by using the least effective yet most restrictive means to achieve Texas’ stated goal of ostensibly protecting minors.” says a message on PornHub’s website.

Aylo, a Canada-based company, owns several other major online pornographic websites including Brazzers, RedTube, and more.

After five months of lockdown in the second-largest US state, adult content creators are feeling the impact of the law.

Gage Goulding: “How has this affected your work?”

Allie Eve Knox: “In several ways. So we are creators and so, first of all, it is very important for us to be able to sell our products to a large audience in order to continue to generate income.”

Belle Creed: “If I publish a video on Friday and the law goes into effect and I’m used to selling a certain like percentage of that video, then it will be cut in half because now half of my customers can access the site.”

Knox is a Texas-based adult content creator. She supports PornHub’s fight against the state of Texas.

Creed has also created adult content.

It’s not about checking the age of visitors to adult websites, it’s about who should check the age.

Texas wants websites to verify the age of visitors.

PornHub wants the device the visitor is using to tell them how old the visitor is.

“The simplest answer is actually to use a device-based filtering system,” Knox said. “If I give my child a device, I will put a filter on it. And I’m not just going to filter for adult content, but also for things like violence or purchases and things like that.”

Both the state and PornHub are not backing down, leading to an ongoing legal battle in the country’s highest court.

According to a brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the Free Speech Coalition in the U.S. Supreme Court against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the group argues that the law violates the First Amendment by “the “The rights of adults are unduly burdened.” to access sexual content online.”

Gage Goulding: “Do you think it’s free speech?”

Allie Eve Knox: “My God. Absolutely. You must ensure that adults tell other consenting adults that they cannot view this type of content. That’s crazy.”

Gage Goulding: “And the worry is that you give a mouse a cookie and then ask him for a glass of milk?”

Allie Eve Knox: “Yes. If these types of laws are passed, it will only lead to more poorly written laws, especially against us.”

Adult content creators like Knox are stuck in the middle. Their paychecks also suffer.

“We have scarlet letters, right,” Knox said. “We can’t go back and become teachers or nurses. We cannot go back and make different decisions than we have already made. We don’t want to have to talk and know about legal things. We just want to sell our content on the internet.”

The fight against Texas State continues. Meanwhile, Texas is still completely banned from using PornHub.