The War on Porn

CANBERRA, Australia—Australia’s digital regulator has told Parliament it will examine whether widely available virtual private networks, or VPNs, are being used to bypass the country’s age-verification rules for pornography websites.

Budget documents submitted to the Australian Senate in May show that eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s office is concerned that platforms covered by technology industry codes may still be receiving web traffic from IP addresses in Australia that has not gone through age verification.

“Under the codes, there are requirements that service providers must take reasonable steps to prevent workarounds like VPNs so eSafety will look at this when considering compliance with codes,” the budget documents state. The documents include an appropriations proposal for Grant’s office.

The concern follows Australian search-engine data from March showing increased interest in the terms “VPN” and “virtual private network.” The rise came as authorities began enforcing age-verification requirements for age-restricted platforms and moved to restrict social media access for minors.

The introduction of the under-16 social-media ban affected a broad range of online services in Australia. Around the same period, Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub.com, said its platforms would be restricted in Australia to comply with the new laws.

Industry codes in Australia require the parent companies of online pornography providers to establish and enforce “appropriate age assurance measures.” Those measures can include identity checks, credit-card verification, artificial-intelligence-assisted biometric age estimation, and other methods.

VPNs, however, have long been used to bypass content blocks and age-verification rules in Australia, the United States, and other countries.

Grant’s office told members of the Australian Senate that it is working on ways to limit unverified VPN traffic.

“This is similar to eSafety’s regulatory guidance for the social media minimum age, where eSafety considers VPN detection as a reasonable step to prevent underage users from having an account,” the documents submitted by Grant’s office state.

“[The] Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport, and the Arts knows that tech companies can tell when a VPN is in use.”

Controversial adult film actress Cherie DeVille has entered into a public spat with Bank of America over the closure of her personal and business accounts. According to the actor, this act of closing her account is politically motivated and is against a federal executive order designed to prevent such actions.

The Video That Sparked the Conflict

The conflict started last week when DeVille put up a video on Instagram detailing her experience.

“So Bank of America has just fired me as a customer,” she claimed. “I know that is crazy because after literally years of banking with them, they closed all of my accounts, my personal accounts, uh, my business accounts, not because I committed fraud or did something illegal, not because I owe them money, but because I’m an adult content creator. That’s it. That’s the entire reason.”

DeVille explained that the industry should not be taken into consideration, as she works legally.

“Whether you personally approve of my job or not is kind of beside the point because at the end of the day, I work in a completely legal business,” she argued. “I pay my taxes, I have employees, I run a company, and I, like all legal businesses, deserve access to banking just like any other law-abiding American.

She called this act “debanking” and pointed to the fact that such kind of behavior is quite common for those working in the legal but controversial industries. She also reminded that there was an executive order signed by President Trump in this regard, although this order did not mention her particular field of work.

“It simply says, if you’re operating a legal business and following the law, you shouldn’t lose access to banking just because somebody doesn’t like what you do, doesn’t agree with your line of legal work,” she said.

According to DeVille, she managed to find another bank, but not everyone could have this opportunity.

“Thankfully, I have already been able to find another bank, and that’s great for me, but not everybody has that privilege,” she explained. “So let me know in the comments if this has happened to you or somebody you know, and if you think that banks should continue to get away with this, just ripping people’s accounts away for no reason other than they don’t like your job.”

Bank of America Statement

After the video went viral, a Bank of America spokesperson said that DeVille’s profession had nothing to do with the closure of her accounts.

“We are subject to federal regulations that require us to monitor account activity. In this case, the account was closed based on recent transactional activity and not because of any industry or profession.”

DeVille Wasn’t Done Yet

This response did not satisfy DeVille, and she published a screenshot on X of the message that Bank of America allegedly sent her. The message stated the following:

“We have carefully reviewed your concerns, and we wanted you to know that we are subject to federal regulations that require us to monitor account activity. In this case, the accounts were closed based on recent transactional activity. We’ve also sent a letter to your email and your mailing address on file.”

DeVille denied this reasoning.

“This is the BS that @bankofamerica sent me. They’re lying. I have never done anything illegal. I have never done a single illegal transaction,” DeVille wrote. “They targeted me for political reasons despite @realdonaldtrump executive order banning debanking.”

In another post, DeVille admitted that her PR team asked her to tone down her actions.

“My mainstream PR just called, asking me to compromise. (Can’t get into details, but I suspect he spoke to people in power.) I love my PR guy, but BOA debanked hundreds of legal adult content creators I know,” she tweeted. “I won’t back down till BOA follows Trump’s executive order. THIS IS WAR!”

She also posted another message to the bank on X.

“The idiots at @BankofAmerica think I’m a dumb hoe,” DeVille tweeted. “Unfortunately I’m an articulate, wealthy p*rn star who chooses to hire multiple mainstream PR consultants. I will speak out against BOA till they follow Trump’s executive order. I will have more surprises for BOA soon. #WAR”

Bank of America responded to Cherie DeVille’s tweets, stating that her profession had nothing to do with the closure of her accounts.

LONDON — The United Kingdom’s digital regulator, Ofcom, has imposed another substantial fine on an online adult entertainment platform, saying it failed to meet the country’s age verification requirements.

The operator of the media-sharing website Fapello.com has been fined £630,000, or roughly $850,000 based on current exchange rates. In announcing the penalty Thursday, the regulator said the fine stemmed from “not having age checks in place, and … for failing to respond to a legally binding information request on time.”

“Robust age checks are a cornerstone of the U.K.’s Online Safety Act,” the agency said. “Sites that host pornographic material must use ‘highly effective’ age assurance to determine whether a particular user is over 18, in order to prevent children from readily accessing that content.”

The regulator imposed a £600,000 fine for failing to comply with the age assurance requirements, along with an additional £30,000 penalty for not responding to official information requests within the required timeframe.

“Age checks are no longer optional for porn sites in the U.K.,” said George Lusty, the regulator’s director of enforcement. “They are a cornerstone of our laws to protect children from content they should not be seeing.”

The regulator also announced Thursday that it has opened an investigation into the operators of Eporner.com. The platform is operated by parent company Bit Hive, a shell company linked to the owners of a business based in Germany and Poland.

“Our investigation will examine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that Bit Hive has failed, or is failing, to comply with the section 12 duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 (‘the Act’), which requires providers to prevent children from encountering pornographic content by implementing highly effective age assurance,” the regulator said in its notice.

The investigation into Eporner.com remains ongoing.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri has become the latest state to formally place age verification requirements for pornography websites into state law.

Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a package of public safety bills on Thursday that included House Bill 1839, the age verification measure introduced by Republican state Rep. Sherri Gallick of Belton.

The legislation was sponsored in the Missouri Senate during the most recent legislative session by Republican State Sen. Mike Henderson of Cape Girardeau.

“The legislation I signed today strengthens the laws that protect our families, supports the men and women who serve our country and communities, and gives our state stronger tools to keep dangerous criminals off our streets,” Gov. Kehoe said in a statement announcing the bill package.

Under House Bill 1839, any website where at least 33 percent of its content is considered harmful to minors or classified as pornographic must verify the age of its users. The requirement applies not only to adult websites but also to mainstream social media platforms, including Reddit and X, if they meet the law’s threshold.

Missouri’s attorney general will enforce the law through civil actions. Violations can result in penalties of up to $10,000 per day, with an additional fine of $250,000 if minors are found to have accessed age-restricted content.

The law is scheduled to take effect on Aug. 28, nearly two months after the close of the state’s fiscal year on June 30. Missouri officials had previously pursued age verification through a regulatory action issued in 2025 by then-Attorney General Andrew Bailey, an effort later supported by his successor, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway. Lawmakers ultimately chose to place the requirement into state statute in an effort to strengthen its standing against potential legal challenges in state court.

Over on WIRED right now, there’s an article about the unexpected role adult content creators are playing in identifying potential security breaches on government (.gov) and university (.edu) websites.

To make a long (and well worth reading) story short, phishers, scammers and other folks of their distasteful ilk have been downloading content from these adult creators, uploading it to .gov and .edu sites they’ve compromised (or otherwise have access to) and using it as clickbait to draw people in to click malicious links, download malware or otherwise expose themselves to risk of becoming a cybercrime victim.

Since many adult content creators use DMCA takedown services, or sent out takedown notices themselves, by reporting links to Google for removal, these creators have unwittingly contributed to the cyber security of both the sites themselves and users who might stumble across the links in Google’s search results.

Near the end of the article, content creator Laura Lux is asked what she made of the DMCA notices potentially notifying site administrators they’ve had a breach. Her response? “I guess sex workers save the world again.”

The story got me thinking about adult content piracy and a different kind of possibly unwitting role being played, this one related to the War on Porn.

I suspect a lot of people who download and “share” the pictures and videos made by adult content creators don’t think of what they’re doing as harmful. Those of them who aren’t trying to make a buck off the content in some way might even believe they’re doing the creators a service, promoting them via ‘word of mouth,’ in effect.

But when you download and distribute content that was made to be sold, you’re not only devaluing the product and undermining the creator’s business model. You’re often also encouraging the perception that adult content is being distributed without thought of complying with the law by the creators themselves, even though your distribution of the content is something they actively don’t want to occur.

Redistributing content without the consent of the rightsholders is bad enough, but pirated adult content is often uploaded to platforms that make no pretense of following any law or complying with any regulation. Platforms that turn a willfully blind eye to regulations then stoke the ire of people like legislators, anti-porn activists and self-righteous TV bloviators, who inevitably tar the entire adult industry with the brush of criminality. (They also sometimes inspire attorneys general to take unusual actions in court, but that’s another story.)

It’s worth remembering that outside of the people who make, sell, distribute or otherwise profit from porn, we don’t enjoy much support in the public sphere. It’s undoubtedly true a hefty percentage of voters enjoy watching porn. But for a variety of reasons, mostly tied up in shame and/or a desire to keep certain aspects of our lives private, we’re probably not going to see big pro-porn rallies in the streets at times when some overreaching new law targeting the adult industry is being debated.

Given that, this is my simple appeal to those outside the adult industry, but who are on “our side” when it comes to the War on Porn: If you can’t openly support us, please at least consider not fighting against us, accidentally or otherwise.

The guidelines here are quite simple, really. Pay for porn when its creators intend for it to be sold and buy it on the platforms its creators have authorized to distribute their work. Don’t ‘share’ their content with tens of millions of ‘friends.’ When you get opportunities to interact with adult content creators, be respectful. If you feel shame because you watch porn, don’t take that shame out on those who make it by denouncing us as whores and panderers; just hire a fucking therapist already and sort yourself out!

And for fuck’s sake, don’t go around hacking university or government websites and uploading porn to them. That’s not just working against “our side;” that’s declaring that the only side you’re on is one that should be in prison.

Nine people connected to a pornography business are set to stand trial in the Czech Republic on human trafficking charges after prosecutors alleged they lured young women with promises of modeling work before coercing them into appearing in pornographic films.

The defendants have denied the allegations. Their defense is expected to argue that the women voluntarily agreed to participate in the productions and signed contracts that clearly outlined the nature of the videos.

According to investigators, the group promoted modeling opportunities for women over the age of 18 between 2016 and 2019, but authorities claim the advertisements concealed the true purpose of the recruitment.

“Detectives concluded that these offers were no more than a veil for the production and subsequent distribution of pornographic films,” the Czech organized crime unit (NCOZ) said.

Authorities said many of the women experienced lasting consequences after taking part in the productions.

“Many manifested psychological and health problems and had to seek medical aid including long-term treatment,” the NCOZ said, adding that investigators believe hundreds of women may have been affected.

The case brought by the State Prosecutors’ Bureau centers on 18 women identified as victims. Prosecutor’s office spokesman Aleš Cimbala said prosecutors will argue that those behind the operation subjected the women to increasing pressure throughout the recruitment process.

“At casting, the organizers created the impression of a rush or played down the importance of the agreements signed” in order to secure the women’s consent, he said.

The indictment spans 629 pages.

Prague has long been recognized as a hub for the adult entertainment industry. Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which brought an end to communist rule in former Czechoslovakia, looser censorship rules and the country’s shift to a market economy attracted pornography producers to the region.

If convicted, the defendants could face prison sentences of up to 12 years, according to Prague city prosecutors.

“The accused include people organizing the Czech Casting project, as well as people ensuring finances, casting production and agreements,” Cimbala said.

He added that photographers, camera operators and actors are also among those facing charges.

BRUSSELS — A civil society organization working across the European Union and internationally has released a report alleging that the three largest pornography platforms operating within the EU are not fully meeting the compliance standards required under the Digital Services Act (DSA) for so-called very large online platforms (VLOPs).

The Digital Intimacy Coalition (DIC) completed its study in April 2026 but did not publicly release its findings until July 6. The report examines three platforms: Aylo-owned Pornhub.com, Technius-owned Stripchat.com, and WebGroup Czech Republic-owned XVideos.com.

All three websites have been designated as VLOPs by the European Commission under the DSA. That designation gives the Commission authority to subject adult entertainment platforms, along with major social networks, to heightened regulatory oversight focused on online safety and compliance throughout the European Union.

Traditionally, VLOPs are defined as online platforms with more than 45 million users across the EU’s 27 member states.

Although the platforms have argued that they serve fewer than 45 million users within the European Union, the Commission has continued to classify sites such as Stripchat and Pornhub as VLOPs. Critics have questioned whether the current definition of a VLOP is appropriate, arguing that the criteria remain open to interpretation. Under the DSA, however, platforms carrying the designation are required to satisfy a number of compliance obligations each year.

According to the Digital Intimacy Coalition, its review identified areas where the three platforms are not fulfilling their “legal obligations to meaningfully assess platform risk,” as outlined in the report.

DIC described its publication as “the first in-depth independent analysis of the legally mandated risk assessments … examined through a sex-positive lens that treats gender-based violence and the over-moderation of consensual content as equally serious violations of fundamental rights.”

“Zero platforms recognise sexual autonomy as a fundamental right. Not one platform’s methodology was found to be documented or reproducible,” DIC added. Carlotta Rigotti, head of DIC’s Risk Assessment Analysis Taskforce, said, “These risk assessments were supposed to be a transparency tool. Instead, they read like reputation management.

“Severity ratings are unsubstantiated, AI-generated content is ignored entirely, and not one platform grapples with the real tension at the heart of this industry: how to protect against gender-based violence without erasing the right to sexual autonomy,” Rigotti continued.

Ana Ornelas, the coalition’s advocacy officer, added, “What is missing from these assessments is just as telling as what is in them.

“We do not have data on moderator welfare, disclosure of civil society partnerships, or engagement with platform architecture or recommender systems, despite that being an explicit legal requirement. Regulators and the public deserve better than this,” Ornelas said. The report also identifies four structural weaknesses that it says appear across all three platforms in relation to the legal requirements for reporting risk assessments. According to the analysis, the assessment methodologies are “opaque” and “non-reproducible.”

The report also states that the platforms rely on a narrow definition of gender-based violence, focusing primarily on the removal of non-consensual image sharing. It further argues that platform policies appear to be driven more by reputational concerns than user safety, while claiming that mitigation measures are often insufficient and that statements regarding their effectiveness are not adequately supported.

The platforms did not provide comments addressing the specific findings outlined in the Digital Intimacy Coalition’s report. An Aylo spokesperson said the company’s latest risk assessment, completed in April, is expected to be published later this month. According to the spokesperson, that report “covers many of the areas addressed in the analysis.”

SAN FRANCISCO — A three-judge panel on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a lawsuit brought by two anonymous plaintiffs against Fenix International Limited, the parent company of OnlyFans.com, over alleged violations of California’s broad law regulating automatically renewing subscription services.

The appellate panel, in an unpublished memorandum issued June 30, reversed a federal district court’s dismissal of the proposed class action and sent the case back for further proceedings. The judges concluded that the lower court incorrectly determined it lacked personal jurisdiction over Fenix under California’s unfair competition law.

California’s unfair competition law was amended following the adoption of the California Automatic Renewal Law (CARL).

The law requires businesses that offer subscriptions, free trials, and recurring digital payments to obtain “explicit affirmative consent” from consumers while also providing “clear disclosures” explaining how customers can easily cancel their subscriptions. The requirements apply to businesses offering digital products and services, including adult websites that rely on recurring subscription models.

The lawsuit was filed by two consumers who challenged the way recurring subscriptions and payments operate on the OnlyFans platform.

According to the district court order issued in April 2025 granting Fenix’s motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs alleged that OnlyFans failed to create a user experience that adequately obtained the “consumer’s affirmative consent to the agreement containing automatic renewal terms.” U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California dismissed the case after agreeing with Fenix’s argument that, because the company is headquartered in London, the California court did not have jurisdiction.

“We conclude that Plaintiffs established that Fenix expressly aimed its conduct at California,” the three appellate judges wrote. “Because the district court concluded to the contrary, we vacate and remand for further proceedings. […] Fenix’s arguments that it did not aim any conduct at California ignore that it regularly fulfills users’ subscriptions wherever those users access its online content, including California.”

The ruling sends the case back to Judge Breyer’s court for additional proceedings on the jurisdictional issue, allowing the lawsuit to move forward. If the plaintiffs ultimately prevail, the outcome could have broader implications for subscription-based creator platforms that operate under business models similar to OnlyFans.

Should the plaintiffs succeed on their claims under the California Automatic Renewal Law, Fenix and the millions of creators who use OnlyFans could face new compliance obligations governing recurring subscriptions.

Those requirements include implementing more transparent billing and subscription practices while ensuring users provide clear, express consent before automatic renewals take effect.

The law also requires companies to notify users of fee increases, updates to subscription terms, and other material changes to user agreements. In addition, cancellation and renewal processes must be straightforward and easy to use, making it simple for subscribers to end recurring payments when they choose.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday that his office had won a court order allowing it to seek the temporary locking of the domain name for a pornography website over alleged violations of the state’s age verification law.

The action involves Kick Online Entertainment, the owner and operator of the adult tube site Motherless.com. Paxton’s office filed suit against the company in 2024, alleging it failed to comply with the age verification requirements established under House Bill 1181. As the case has progressed, state officials have pursued a new legal remedy by seeking control over a privately owned domain that serves users both within Texas and beyond the state’s borders.

“This court order establishes a huge precedent that websites can be stripped of their domain if they ignore the law and harm children with pornographic content,” Paxton said. “This affirms that protecting children from pornographic content is not only about collecting a penalty but also shutting down websites that refuse to obey the law.”

“My office will continue to take action against any website that harms kids by allowing them access to pornographic content,” Paxton added.

Under the court’s writ of attachment, Kick Online Entertainment may regain control of its domain if it posts a $9.14 million bond and implements age verification measures for users accessing the site from Texas. The order also resulted in Verisign, the registry responsible for the domain, temporarily locking access until those conditions are met.

The ruling marks an unusual enforcement step following the decision in Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton. While Motherless.com has faced significant controversy in recent years, including allegations highlighted in national reporting, the court’s decision is expected to draw attention because it permits state regulators to seek control over a website’s domain as part of enforcing age verification laws. Legal disputes involving domain names are not uncommon, but using that mechanism in this context represents a notable development in the ongoing enforcement of Texas’ online age verification requirements.

“The Office of the Attorney General will continue to use every available legal mechanism, including writs of attachment against domain names, to enforce Texas law and ensure that no company, regardless of where it is incorporated, can profit from exposing Texas children to harmful content,” Paxton’s office stated.

In the current legal and regulatory climate surrounding online adult entertainment, it feels like it’s a rare day when those of us who work in the adult industry get to celebrate a development that breaks in our favor. This week we were granted such an opportunity however, following a federal judge’s decision holding that an adult website operator domiciled in Spain can’t be sued for failing to comply with Kansas’ age verification mandate.

While there’s more to the decision than this aspect alone, the crux of the court’s decision is a holding that the company and website involved, Pump Lab SL and SuperPorn.com, simply don’t have sufficient “contacts” with Kansas to support the court exercising “personal jurisdiction” over Pump Lab.

In the decision, U.S. District Court Judge Holly Teeter noted that “visitors from Kansas represent 0.086% of the website’s visitors,” and “does not have employees in Kansas, does not own or lease real estate in Kansas, does not conduct business in Kansas, is not licensed to conduct business in Kansas, does not pay taxes in Kansas, and does not have employees in Kansas (or who travel to Kansas).”

If you’re thinking it sounds like Pump Lab truly has fuck-all to do with Kansas, you’re right – and that fact is what sank the attempt to haul them into a Kansas court to face repercussions for alleged failures to comply with Kansas law.

If only to temper my own enthusiasm a bit, it’s important to note that the other recent decisions I’ve hailed as good news for the adult industry were also authored by Judge Teeter, which means it’s possible they’ll all be overturned on related appeals. I doubt that will happen though, mostly because none of this is happening in a vacuum.

If a judge in Teeter’s position in these cases were to hold that citizens of Kansas can haul a foreign company into court based on connections as flimsy as the ones at play in the Pump Lab case, that ruling could ripple out into disputes between U.S. consumers and foreign companies in a broad swath of business sectors nowhere near as controversial or disfavored by the government as porn is – inevitably touching on areas of international commerce the government wants to encourage and see prosper.

The other thing to note here is these sorts of decisions are highly fact dependent – and facts will vary greatly from case to case. As Judge Teeter observed in a previous decision dismissing a case filed under the relevant Kansas law, finding that the defendant’s CDN usage in that case was irrelevant “does not mean that a website owner’s use of a CDN is never relevant” and “does not mean that a website owner’s use of a CDN could never show purposeful direction.”

The same can be said of the lack of sufficient contacts with a jurisdiction like Kansas. Another, otherwise, similarly-situated foreign defendant certainly could do business in a way that creates sufficient contacts in the state for the court to exercise jurisdiction – which would change everything, obviously. At that point, the case would turn on other issues entirely, issues which very well might break against the hypothetical online adult company in question.

So yes, today let us celebrate Judge Teeter’s very rational and measured decision in the cumbersomely titled case of Q.R., a minor, by and through Jane Doe v. Pump Lab, SL – but let’s do so with clear eyes about what the decision does and doesn’t mean for the future.