Florida has restricted access to porn as a result of a new state law.

Florida has restricted access to porn as a result of a new state law.

Following the implementation of a new legislation that made it more difficult to watch online at midnight on January 1, the state of Florida is taking aggressive measures to combat porn. Florida people may no longer access Pornhub and other websites since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis passed a bill forcing porn providers to track users by confirming their age.

When someone in Florida tries to visit websites like Pornhub or RedTube, they receive messages from the firm telling them that they are prohibited from viewing porn due to state legislation. According to a representative, "Your elected officials have mandated that we confirm your age before allowing you to access our website." In order to confirm the age of users accessing online pornography, the state now demands users to upload their driver's licenses or even a photo of their face. While many Florida voters believe their freedom is being infringed, others believe it ought to be outlawed.

An 18-year-old guy expressed his disapproval of the requirement for a driver's license to visit an adult website, arguing that it was unfair since people his age could enlist in the military and sacrifice their lives for their nation. "The internet offers much more offensive content than porn," he stated. Additionally, posting your licenses raises concerns. According to Phil James of Fort Myers, the worry that websites could be compromised and that users' private information could be jeopardized seems reasonable. "I believe that their fear of being hacked and having all that personal data exposed is legitimate."

Pornhub and many others are concerned that the new state regulation may push consumers to unregulated websites on the dark web. Users are warned by Pornhub that requesting age verification may lead to traffic to websites with significantly fewer security safeguards. The business proposes that users' devices, not their identities, be used for tracking. "We've taken the tough choice to fully disable the site in your region until a viable alternative is provided. "Please get in touch with your representatives," a Pornhub official stated.

The 18-year-old man claimed that while people are concerned about catastrophes like school shootings, it seems odd that the state is tightening down on porn. "That seems a little strange to me," he remarked. Thirteen states, including Florida, have banned access to some porn websites. The governor of Florida recently approved a new law that prohibits minors under the age of 14 from opening accounts on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

The United States' crackdown on unfettered online pornography intensified as 2025 got underway, and on January 1, residents of Florida were deprived of access to the most popular pornographic website in the world. In an effort to protest the need for age verification using official identification, Pornhub and other websites have cut down access from within the state instead of demanding identification.

The rush to VPNs that is typically only observed in war-torn, autocratic, or tightly restricted markets—Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea—rather than Florida, Texas, and South Carolina, has been sparked by the array of U.S. states that have joined the age verification trend, putting politics aside. According to VPNMentor, they "saw a 1150% increase in VPN demand [in Florida] in the first few hours" following the new law's implementation on January 1st, which they call "staggering."

This is in line with comparable spikes in other states: "The demand for VPNs surged by 967% after Pornhub banned customers from Utah. and Texas's adult-site-related age restriction regulations, which were passed last year, resulted in a 234% increase in demand for the product.Approximately 139 million Americans dwell in jurisdictions that have age verification laws in place that target adult entertainment platforms, according to TechDirt on Monday. Whether or not personally identifiable information is included, banning access to content is a privacy minefield. As the EFF cautioned once more this week, "mandatory age verification tools are surveillance systems that threaten everyone's rights to speech and privacy, and introduce more harm than they seek to combat."

With the help of a virtual private network (VPN), users can pretend to be somewhere they're not by using a server located in that area to route their online traffic. A click or a tap removes the user's Florida location and instantly transports them to Boston, New York, Singapore, or even London. A VPN is the most dependable way to get around these limitations, according to Cybernews, and "Adults in Florida Will Use a VPN Starting January 1st," according to Gizmodo.But before you download and set up a VPN that claims to remove these limitations, you should exercise caution because you could be seriously jeopardizing your device and data. Additionally, the danger is particularly high for people who use mobile devices, such as iPhones, iPads, and Android phones.

A VPN is rarely or never necessary for the majority of Americans. Web traffic is safe, and as long as you're not sending private, unencrypted data, the dangers of public Wi-Fi are mostly exaggerated. There's not much reason to be concerned about your IP address or the websites you're browsing revealing your location. Not for most users, anyway. Yet, the new limitations abruptly alter everything, as Pornhub receives 3 billion monthly visitors from Americans.