Fans of Pornhub in Texas may have been disappointed today after the website blocked any internet addresses trying to access it from the state amid a legal wrangle concerning a new age verification law.

Pornhub in February was the sixth most visited website in the U.S., garnering more than 2.8 billion visits that month. It’s also the 14^th most popular website in the world. Closing it to the second most populous state in the country will surely have caused some amount of distress, although considering an estimated 39% of Americans use a virtual private network, the news might not be so devastating for Texan pornography fans.

The news comes as Texas adopted age verification laws that are fast catching on in the U.S., although they were initially blocked in Texas. The states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Virginia and Utah have also adopted age verification laws, resulting in Pornhub disabling use in those states, too.

“Since then, our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80 percent,” Pornhub wrote in a statement after it left Louisiana. “Those people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to other corners of the internet that don’t verify age, that don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.”

Speaking about Texas today, the company called the law “ineffective” and “haphazard” while also impinging on “protected speech.” Such laws are controversial in that asking internet users to provide personally identifiable information can be deemed an invasion of their privacy, and they may also lead to the exploitation of people’s personal data.

Both the EU and the U.K will also introduce age verification laws in an effort to prevent young people from seeing adult material. Under the Digital Services Act, adult websites throughout all of the EU will, at some point during 2024, have to conform. Some see this as a reining-in of the “Wild West” of the internet, while others see it as potentially oppressive.

The U.K. has called age verification laws a “milestone,” yet privacy advocates contend that the laws may lead to hacks and extortion while enhancing government surveillance. The Electronic Frontiers Foundation has spoken about the U.K. Online Safety Bill in what might be called Orwellian terms. It ha’s also been pointed out that such a law may move people to darker parts of the internet to find their porn fix.

“They just very easily moved to pirate, illegal, or other non-compliant sites that don’t ask visitors to verify their age,” Pornhub wrote in a blog post today about its customers. “Very few sites are able to compare to the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place to protect both the users viewing content on Pornhub from engaging with potentially dangerous content and provide a safe platform for creators to monetize their content and engage with fans.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doesn’t see it that way, today tweeting that Pornhub is “on the run” from a law that aims to “prevent them [Pornhub] from showing harmful, obscene material to children.” He finished with a flourish, “If they don’t want to comply, good riddance.”

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