[This is an opinion piece by Pornhub’s Head of Community and Brand Alexzandra Kekesi]
LOS ANGELES – Across the United States, state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been trying to achieve the crucial goal of preventing minors from accessing adult content.
Last month, Texas became the latest in a wave of states to require users to verify their age by providing a government-issued ID before accessing adult platforms. On April 8, Governor Hobbs of Arizona vetoed similar legislation, citing the need for bipartisan support for a solution that does not violate the First Amendment.
To be clear, we support age verification and the incredibly important goals behind these bills: creating a safer internet and preventing young people from accessing age-inappropriate content. However, the way most of these bills are designed will do the exact opposite.
Aylo owns and operates Pornhub, a global adult entertainment platform where more than 130 million users worldwide engage with a variety of adult content in a safe and moderated environment. For us, safety and compliance are at the core of what we do.
Our goal is to create safe, sex-positive online environments for the benefit of both creators and visitors. We are leaders in trust and security and have implemented compliance measures that are comparable to or better than any other major platform on the Internet.
Unfortunately, the legislation introduced across the country not only raises serious concerns about user privacy and freedom of expression, but also makes the Internet more dangerous for adults and children. By haphazardly implementing legislation without proper enforcement, lawmakers are essentially allowing platforms to choose whether or not to comply without any consequences.
As a result, traffic has migrated from responsible platforms that choose to comply, to illegal or other non-compliant sites that do not ask visitors to verify their age, that do not follow the law, that do not take user safety seriously, or who often don’t even moderate the content. In practice, the unintended consequence of the legislation is a less secure internet with serious additional privacy risks.
While these challenges may seem insurmountable, the solution is within reach: age verification at the device level.
The case for device-level authentication
At the touch of a button on a smartphone, computer or tablet, users should be able to mark a device as 18+, giving it access to a mature user experience. The technology to successfully verify user age at the device level exists today and can successfully prevent children from accessing adult content without risking sensitive user data being exposed.
When adults want to access apps or websites intended for adults, they can age-verify their user account, such as an Apple ID, Google, or Microsoft account, directly through their device. The age verification is simply added to the account process, asking the user to prove their age once. When a minor uses their own device that is not age-verified, they will be automatically blocked if they try to access sites or apps that are not age appropriate. With device-level age verification, adults’ online experience would remain largely unchanged. The websites simply grant them access without barriers because the age verification has already taken place.
It goes without saying that adult content and platforms are not the only things where children need to be protected from accessing the internet. Unfortunately, without a clear standard, parents are forced to navigate a tenuous patchwork of potentially easily circumvented verification processes for things like online dating, gaming, alcohol and cannabis.
Age restriction is a very complex topic that raises data privacy concerns as well as the potential for uneven and inconsistent application across different digital platforms.
We’ve seen several states and countries try to impose age verification requirements at the platform level, but all have failed to adequately protect children. There are currently thousands of existing sites, and new ones are launched every year. In states where unworkable and unconstitutional laws have been passed, we have complied by removing access to our platform in those states. As a result, we have seen an exponential increase in searches for alternative adult sites, without age restrictions or safety standards.
Without a uniform approach, adult material on thousands of sites that do not moderate content and contain harmful content will continue to be widely available to minors. Focusing on a handful of sites at a time won’t solve the problem. Age verification on devices should be easy to use, secure, and enforced equally across all platforms that offer adult content.
The device-level solution gives parents the tools they need to keep their children safe. We unequivocally support a comprehensive technological and policy solution that will prevent noncompliance at the federal and state levels across the country.
To make a real impact on child safety, we believe age verification safeguards should be on actual devices, rather than on thousands of individual sites with adult content. We are committed to working with policymakers at all levels of government to develop and implement clear, enforceable, and effective age verification at the device level.