- Pornhub exited Florida on January 1 due to a new age verification law.
- The HB3 law requires users to provide ID to access adult sites. Non-compliant platforms face fines.
- After the law was enacted, interest in VPNs in Florida skyrocketed.
Pornhub’s exit from Florida at the start of this year over a new law requiring age verification for adult websites has resulted in searches for VPNs in the state skyrocketing.
VpnMentor told Forbes that it “detected a surge of 1150% in VPN demand” in Florida in the first few hours of the law taking effect on January 1.
The company described the surge as “staggering.”
Google searches for “VPN” in Florida also experienced a notable rise.
While Google Trends doesn’t give exact search figures, it showed that interest in the term “VPN” in Florida reached a score of 100 on New Year’s Day. A value of 100 represents peak popularity for the term, a sharp increase from a score of 58 the day before.
Interest remained high as of Monday, with the term scoring 82 out of 100.
VPNs allow users to hide their location and IP address by routing their internet connection through a remote VPN server, allowing them to bypass regional blocks on websites.
The surge in VPN interest followed the implementation of HB3, which was passed by Florida lawmakers and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
HB3 requires users to verify their ages with a third party using a driver’s license before they can view pornographic material. If platforms hosting explicit material fail to comply, they can be fined up to $50,000 for each violation.
Florida is not alone in adopting such legislation. States like Oklahoma, Idaho, and North Carolina have introduced similar age-verification laws.
Last year, Pornhub pulled out of Texas in protest over a legally contentious effort to introduce age verification requirements.
Proton, a VPN service, said on Friday that it had received a “massive surge” in sign-ups for its services in the US.
“Typically, we see such spikes from countries with unstable governments facing internet shutdowns, meaning this is an anomaly,” it said.
In a follow-up X post, Proton described it as a “false alarm” and said that the surge was the result of “porn.”
Pornhub, the world’s most-visited adult website and one of the most visited websites in the world, has already blocked access to its content in 17 states, according to The Independent.
In a statement provided to media outlets, Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, described the age-verification methods outlined in such laws as “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.”
“Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is jeopardizing user safety,” it continued.
Those attempting to access Pornhub in Florida without a VPN are now shown a video presented by adult entertainment star Cherie DeVille, who says “giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform” is ineffective and puts children and users’ privacy at risk.
Beyond grappling with age-verification laws, Aylo is also dealing with a wave of legal challenges.
Business Insider’s Laura Italiano reported last year that hundreds of people have sued the company, alleging the website knowingly profited from videos depicting their abuse.
Meanwhile, in August, a Toronto-based law firm began a three-year independent monitorship of Pornhub and Aylo, which will review how Aylo responds to takedown requests and how it screens for illegal content.
