Former porn star calls on government to enforce ‘mandatory’ age verification for adult websites

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Former porn star turned pastor Brittni De La Mora is calling on age verification laws to become “mandatory” to “protect children” as Florida is set to effectuate legislation on the matter in January. 

Pornhub will soon no longer be available to Florida users after the Sunshine State instituted a new age verification rule for access to adult sites. Taking effect Jan. 1, 2025, the age verification rule is tied to the state’s HB 3, a measure that aims to protect minors online.

Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, emphasized to Fox News Digital that it favors implementing effective age verification, just not specifically in the way Florida’s law was designed, saying other outlets have incorrectly reported it doesn’t support age verification at all. 

“They’re deflecting accountability by saying that they don’t want to follow a simple law, which is age verification for pornography,” De La Mora said on “The Ingraham Angle.” “I don’t know exactly what they’re doing with their money, but I do believe that they are not out to protect young children.”

“Fifty-eight percent of minors that have watched pornography for their very first time — they watched it by stumbling upon it through a pop-up ad and so forth. And they weren’t looking for porn — porn was looking for them,” De La Mora said.

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Per the bill, a website or application that “contains a substantial portion of material that is harmful to minors” will be required to verify the age of the user. Through an “anonymous or standard age verification method,” it must confirm the user is 18 or older to proceed with engagement. 

In response to the specifications of the measure, Aylo elected to halt access to the adult site in Florida, saying in a statement that collecting “highly sensitive personal information” puts “user safety in jeopardy.” 

“First, to be clear, Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy, and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults. Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws,” Aylo told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

The statement later continued: “The best solution to make the internet safer, preserve user privacy, and prevent children from accessing adult content is performing age verification at the source: on the device. The technology to accomplish this exists today. What is required is the political and social will to make it happen. We are eager to be part of this solution and are happy to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution. In addition, many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental control features that can prevent children from accessing adult content without risking the disclosure of sensitive user data.”

Florida residents still using the app ahead of the deadline are met with a countdown pop-up of how many more days they have access to the site. 

“Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver’s license before you can access PORNHUB?” the pop-up reads. “As crazy as that sounds, it’s true. You’ll be required to prove you are 18 years or older such as by uploading your government ID for every adult content website you’d like to access.”

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The pop-up also addressed how it supports minors not having access to the site, and said that preventing use is a “good thing.” It directed readers to alternative methods of blocking minor access, such as “Device-Based Age Verification.”

In this photo illustration, a PornHub logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen in Athens, Greece on March 16, 2022. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

De La Mora continued: “I was in the porn industry for seven years, and I would be paid extra money to do aggressive, abusive scenes.”

She expanded on how the “pulling hair, spitting and choking” acts often used in porn clips have become “sexual education” for young people. 

After speaking with some young girls, De La Mora said many expressed not wanting to have sex again after their first sexual experience.

“I don’t blame the young boys. They are watching pornography, and this is what’s filling their minds, and this is what’s teaching them how to have sex,” she said.

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“Protecting children is not a violation of your First Amendment rights in any way. I believe that our government has an obligation to protect children,” De La Mora said, arguing that adult content is “not created with children in mind.” “It is created for adults, and yet there has been no accountability for porn companies.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ communications office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.