POLL: Should Wyoming Require ID to Access Online Pornography?

Age-verification laws concerning adult sites like Pornhub have been a major point of conversation in the U.S. lately.

In response to several states requiring ID to access websites where over a third of the content is explicit, Pornhub blocked itself from nearly all of the South.

Pornhub is now blocked in 16 states:

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Florida
• Idaho
• Indiana
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Mississippi
• Montana
• Nebraska
• North Carolina
• Oklahoma
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Utah
• Virginia

Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, fires back that requiring ID is a violation of user privacy and puts people's personal data at risk, and that's the reasoning for pulling its websites from these states as a result of the laws.

In the future, further restrictions could be introduced under President Trump's administration; this was proposed in the Heritage Project 2025, a political initiative that was published in April 2022, to promote conservative policies to reshape the federal government of the United States.

Five pages into the foreword by the president of the Heritage Foundation plan proposes a porn ban, and that porn producers and distributors should be sent to prison, and tech companies that circulate it should be shut down.

However, Trump has publicly disavowed the project. A spokeswoman for the president said that all of President Trumps’ Cabinet nominees and appointments are whole-heartedly committed to President Trump’s agenda, not the agenda of outside groups.

Even if Trump did decide to support the proposal and ban porn, it wouldn't be easy.

The government has made previous attempts to censor sexual content to block minors from access, but it becomes tricky to pin down what the definition of "porn" is. Further, the president would need help from Congress and the Supreme Court to change laws that even could censor the industry.

One group actually sued the state of Texas after verification laws were put in place, saying:

"Adults in America have a First Amendment right to read about sexual health, see R-rated movies, watch porn, and otherwise access information about sex if they want to. They should be allowed to exercise that right as they see fit, without having to worry about exposing their personal identifying information in the process." That comes from Vera Eidelman, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project said in a September release.

The group will go before a judge on January 15th to present arguments.

What are your thoughts?