Conservative red state Florida has thrown out its latest salvo in its culture war efforts to control the private lives of its citizens. The state has enacted a law, which went into effect Jan. 1, that requires all online providers of pornography to insist on a driver’s license or similar photo ID to access its material.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis justified the law as an attempt to protect children from the dangers of pornography. At the bill signing ceremony last year, DeSantis used the fear-mongering strategy ubiquitous in his rhetoric.
“You can have a kid in the house safe, seemingly, and then you have predators that can get right in there into your own home,” he said.
The law provides for fines of $30,000 for every instance of non-compliance.
The porn industry vehemently opposes the new law, citing privacy concerns that are unique to this industry. In response, rather than comply with the new law, Pornhub, the nation’s pre-eminent porn website, has chosen to block access to its site by the entire state of Florida. Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, announced the blockage in Florida Politics in December.
Aylo subsequently released a statement to several outlets explaining its position.
“Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy,” the statement reads. “Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.”
A number of other states have passed similar laws, which are crafted in such a way to restrict access to porn sites while bypassing First Amendment protections. Pornhub has likewise blocked access to its site in those states as well. Those states are: Kentucky, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, Montana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas and Utah — a veritable laundry list of the most right-wing states in the country.
Interestingly, much of the press coverage of this story by the mainstream media is focusing on how people are both sidestepping Pornhub’s block and avoiding compliance with the law. Apparently most people are using VPNs (“virtual private network”), which are apps that ensure online privacy and help with accessing networks or sites where privacy is an issue. Perhaps the best known of these is NordVPN, which sponsors many informational channels on YouTube. Some private media companies such as Forbes offer private VPNs as well.
According to a report by Yahoo News, once Florida’s law went into force, and after Pornhub instituted its block in Florida, VPN demand in that state surged by more than 1000%. Other reports have put forth figures in excess of 1,200%. Additionally, media companies such as Forbes rolled out VPNs specifically tailored to sidestep Pornhub’s block and evade state ID laws. This is a clear indication, not only of the high demand for porn, but also people’s high demand for privacy.
The porn industry has been quick to challenge the constitutionality of these state laws in court. A number of porn platforms, including Pornhub, have banded together to form the Free Speech Coalition to pursue the various legal challenges. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in FSC v. Paxton, concerning Texas’ version of the law. After a lower court blocked the law as unconstitutional, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed it to take effect, bumping the case up to the Supreme Court.
While the SCOTUS session provided much grist for comedic memes illustrating how out of touch some of the justices are, the case also deals with a wide range of issues dealing with the internet and free speech. Legal scholars are unwilling to speculate on details of whatever SCOTUS eventually decides, given the recent ruling history of the current hyper-conservative court, it is unlikely that the final ruling will do any favors for the First Amendment.