USING PROTECTION

Texans Get Busy Searching for VPNs After Pornhub Pulls Out

A day earlier, Texas passed a law requiring porn sites to verify their users are at least 18.

A day after a new age-verification law left Texas porn-seekers high and dry, it seems the Lone Star state’s residents got busy looking for a VPN service. Google Trends showed that interest in Texas for the term “VPN” was up 100 percent from the day before, likely from users attempting to skirt the ban. On Thursday, Pornhub and other porn sites owned by Aylo Entertainment pulled out of Texas after an appeals court forced it to comply with the state’s age-verification law. That law, passed by the Texas legislature last year, requires sites that provide “sexual material harmful to minors” to check that users are over 18. It’s similar to a Utah state law that passed in May 2023, which also resulted in Pornhub closing up shop for good there. Now, if a user tries to access the sites in either state (without the use of a good VPN), they’re met with messages about the respective laws and effectively blocked from entering.