Laws requiring porn websites to verify user ages and block people under age 18 have been spreading like a contagion around the United States. Proponents say they’re necessary to curb minors’ access to pornography, even if it means sacrificing adults’ privacy. Detractors argue that not only do these laws infringe on protected speech, they won’t even work at accomplishing their stated goal of stopping young people from viewing adult content. They may even make matters worse, by driving adults and minors alike to websites working outside of U.S. standards and regulations.
A new working paper suggests the detractors are right.
The paper details research looking at how age-verification laws impact “digital behavior across four key dimensions: searches for the largest compliant website, the largest non-compliant website, VPN services, and adult content generally.”
Since 2023, at least 18 states have adopted laws requiring websites that display sexually oriented content to essentially check IDs of all visitors. States requiring age verification for online adult content now include (in order of their laws passing) Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi, Arkansas, Virginia, Montana, Texas, North Carolina, Indiana, Idaho, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. These laws have already taken effect in all of these states except Georgia, which is set to start enforcing its age-verification law on July 1.
Researchers led by David Lang of Stanford University’s Polarization and Social Change Lab looked at Google Trends data from all of these states.
They found first that the passage of age-verification laws corresponded to a significant reduction in searchers for Pornhub, the dominant porn platform complying with these laws.
That’s what proponents of age-verification laws want, right?
Not so fast. The passage of such laws was also linked to significant increases in searches for XVideos, the dominant porn platform noncompliant with these laws.
The researchers also found age-verification laws linked to an increase in searches for virtual private network (VPN) services, which can mask a user’s location, thereby allowing people in states where age-verification laws exist to appear as if they’re visiting websites from within a state where no such laws exist.
“Our findings highlight that while these regulation efforts reduce traffic to compliant firms and likely a net reduction overall to this type of content, individuals adapt primarily by moving to content providers that do not require age verification,” states the paper.
“The three-month results demonstrate a 51% reduction in searches for the largest compliant platform, accompanied by increases in searches for the next largest non-compliant platform (48.1%) and VPN (23.6%) services,” it notes.
“We find that users in affected states simply shift their habits by searching for non-compliant sites or ways to circumvent the laws,” posted Zeve Sanderson, executive director of New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics and one of the paper’s researchers, on X.
“While age-verification laws may successfully reduce traffic to regulated platforms, they also appear to drive users toward potentially less regulated & more dangerous alternatives,” Sanderson commented.
The researchers note in their paper that using Google Trend data to study porn consumption habits is not perfect, since it observes “changes in search patterns but cannot definitively determine whether these changes translate to meaningful differences in site access” and “cannot compute the true extent to which these laws affect actual visitation to the targeted websites.”
“Additionally, users may access sites through direct URLs, bookmarks, or other means that bypass search engines entirely, meaning that our analysis potentially understates or misses important behavioral adaptations,” they write. “Finally, a crucial limitation is our inability to differentiate users by age. Since Google Trends data is aggregated and anonymized, we cannot determine whether observed changes in search behavior are driven by the intended target of these regulations (i.e. minors) or reflect broader behavioral shifts across all age groups.”
Nonetheless, the researchers suggest that this raises important considerations for policymakers, since it highlights “the importance of monitoring unintended consequences, particularly the potential shift of users toward less regulated or potentially more dangerous platforms.”
What’s more, “the implications of these findings extend beyond the immediate context of adult content regulation,” they write. “As states increasingly adopt digital access restrictions across various domains—from social media age verification to platform-specific bans—understanding how users adapt to such regulations becomes crucial for effective policy design.”
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Otherwise Objectionable: That’s the name of the new podcast by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Techdirt Editor Mike Masnick about Section 230, launching today. You can listen to the first episode here. “At a time when Section 230 faces unprecedented threats from all sides—with both major political parties gunning for it, albeit for opposite reasons—understanding this crucial internet law has never been more important,” Masnick wrote earlier this month on Techdirt:
So last year, when the Competitive Enterprise Institute approached me about hosting a documentary-style podcast exploring the past, present, and (hopefully) future of Section 230, I was understandably skeptical. After all, much of the discourse around 230 comes from people who fundamentally misunderstand it. But it quickly became clear that CEI truly grasped both the technical aspects and the broader implications of the law and shared my vision for the kind of deep, nuanced exploration this topic deserves.
The result is “Otherwise Objectionable: the most misunderstood law on the internet,” launching March 12th. The podcast format allows us to dig deep into the human stories behind Section 230 — both from those who shaped the law and those whose lives were shaped by it. Rather than just explaining the legal technicalities, we explore how this short statute enabled the creation of countless online communities and gave voice to millions who previously had none.
FIRE seeks to halt campus drag show ban: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is suing over Texas A&M University System’s campus drag show ban. “FIRE is asking a court in the Southern District of Texas to halt Texas A&M officials from enforcing the drag ban, abruptly adopted on Friday afternoon,” notes FIRE. “The lawsuit is on behalf of the Queer Empowerment Council, a coalition of student organizations at Texas A&M University-College Station and the organizers of the fifth annual ‘Draggieland’ event that was scheduled to be held on campus on March 27.” FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh says, “Public universities can’t shut down student expression simply because the administration doesn’t like the ‘ideology’ or finds the expression ‘demeaning.’ That’s true not only of drag performances, but also religion, COVID, race, politics, and countless other topics where campus officials are too often eager to silence dissent.”
Arizona abortion ban permanently blocked: An Arizona ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy has been permanently blocked by a Maricopa County Superior Court. The court ruled that the ban conflicts with a constitutional amendment voted in last fall that protects abortion up until fetal viability as a “fundamental right.” The case was brought by Planned Parenthood of Arizona and several doctors, represented by a coalition including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Arizona.
“Arizonans made it clear that politicians have no business interfering with private medical decisions related to pregnancy and abortion care when they voted to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution,” said Lauren Beall, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Arizona, in a statement. “We are committed to working with providers and partners to ensure that all of Arizona’s laws fall in line with the will of the people.”
Utah lawmakers vote to raise mandatory minimum sentence for human trafficking: As in the war on drugs, antitrafficking crusaders keep pushing to ratchet up penalties and impose mandatory minimum sentences, despite a lack of evidence that mandatory minimums do anything to deter crime or result in more justice being served. One such effort is currently underway in Utah. “Now passed by both the House and Senate, HB405, if signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, will increase penalties for certain human trafficking offenses in the state,” reports Deseret News.
The measure would raise the minimum sentence for trafficking offenses involving a minor to 10 years. The bill would also raise mandatory minimums for other trafficking crimes, including merely benefiting from a trafficking crime.
Of course, there’s nothing stopping judges and juries at present from sentencing people to harsh sentences when warranted. All this does is take away their ability to use discretion and decide that, maybe, sometimes, a decade in prison is too much. (For instance: Under the new proposal, someone offering anything of value in exchange for sex with someone under age 18, even if they had reason to believe the minor was an adult and/or were only a year or so above age themselves, would face an automatic 10 years in prison.)
“I’ve seen these mandatory minimums sometimes sweep up people who really don’t deserve the mandatory minimum,” state Sen. Derrin R. Owens (R–Fountain Green) said, per Deseret News. “Our job as a legislature is to set policy to say, ‘Yes, we do think these are very serious crimes worthy of very serious punishment,’ but then we let a judge and a jury decide how that law should apply to the facts before them.”
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