Pornhub asked Tennessee lawmakers to end its age verification laws, saying they don’t work and push minors to “riskier, irresponsible sites.”
The Protect Tennessee Minors Act was passed in 2024. Tennesseans must now show ID, like a driver’s license, to prove their age if they want to watch porn on site likes Pornhub. Now, any site “that contains a substantial portion of material harmful to minors” must check a users age.
Pornhub has pushed back on these restrictions, with lawsuits against them now underway in the E.U. and in Utah. In a letter to 300 lawmakers this week, the adult site asked leaders to reconsider the “performative, ineffective, and unenforceable age verification laws you have taken part in.” The letter went to 12 Tennessee leaders including Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, and GOP leaders in the state House and Senate.
“These laws demonstrably do not work and, as a result, have put your constituents’ children and adults’ personal data at risk,” the letter reads. “If you truly intend to protect minors online, you must acknowledge the facts and introduce a real solution.”
Pornhub’s letter said in Texas, where porn was age-restricted in 2023, “a simple online search showed 9 out of the top 10 search results for ‘free porn’ had no age verification at all. In Australia, where social media is outlawed for those under age 16, “three months after the ban more than 85 percent of teenagers are still using social media.”
This pushes many seeking adult content to other, riskier sites that provide the content but don’t enforce the age restriction.
Pornhub said it has been using a solution from Apple to block minors from accessing adult sites in the U.K. Devices themselves are restricted from the material and cannot access them even with a VPN.
Finally, Pornhub said lawmakers could not prove that their age-restriction laws work at all. The company challenged them to come up with a solution that does.
“We urge you to focus on putting into action policies that produce measurable improvements in child safety rather than legislation that grabs headlines,” the letter reads. “The technology exists. A precedent exists. The responsibility now lies with you to pursue solutions that truly protect children across the entire internet.”
