COLUMBUS, Ohio — Aylo has geoblocked Pornhub across Ohio today, as the state’s age verification law goes into effect.
The Ohio law states that any organization that “sells, delivers, furnishes, disseminates, provides, exhibits, or presents any material or performance that is obscene or harmful to juveniles on the internet” must follow several age verification procedures or face possible enforcement in the form of civil action brought by the state attorney general. Specific penalties are not enumerated in the bill.
In a statement, Aylo explained that while it publicly supports age verification of users, it also believes that any AV law must preserve user safety and privacy, and effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults.
“Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous,” the statement noted. “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.”
Ohio’s age verification law is somewhat unique among state AV legislation in that it was inserted as a rider into an omnibus budget appropriations bill, HB 96, after several attempts to pass standalone bills failed in the legislature. The budget bill passed in June with the amended age verification wording.
In 2023, XBIZ reported that State Rep. Steve Demetriou (R-Bainbridge Township) introduced HB 295 to Ohio’s House of Representatives. Dubbed the Innocence Act, the proposed AV law failed to reach a committee review and was considered “dead” by the end of 2024.
Demetriou then introduced a second Innocence Act law, HB 84, earlier this year. However, it also failed to gain traction in the House.
Another proposed AV law, SB 212, was introduced by state senators Bill DeMora (D-Franklin County) and Stephanie Kunze (R-Franklin County) in 2024. It also failed to reach a committee review and died later that year.
Adult industry attorney and First Amendment expert Corey D. Silverstein called the previous attempts at legislation “stepping stones,” and noted that debates over the strictness of the regulations and the possible privacy threats led to their downfall.
“Eventually, HB 84’s provisions were merged into the state budget bill (HB 96) so that the age verification law is now part of the budget/appropriations legislation,” he told XBIZ, adding that the budget bill provision is just as binding and enforceable as any standalone legislation.
Silverstein speculated that the provision was added to the budget bill as it would encounter less resistance.
“The bill on its own was receiving more scrutiny,” he said. “By dumping it into the budget, they had virtually no opposition. Unfortunately, this is very common across all levels of government these days.”
Aylo believes such laws only serve to drive consumers to access porn through potentially more dangerous avenues.
“We have seen how this scenario plays out in the United States,” the company’s statement continued. “In Louisiana, Pornhub was one of the few sites to comply with the new law. Since then, our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80 percent. These people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don't ask users to verify age, that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content. In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”
As in other states where Aylo has blocked access to Pornhub — including Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Virginia, Utah, Nebraska, and Alabama — the company will replace its landing page with an SFW video in which Cherie DeVille explains the reasons for the content restriction.
“As you may know, your elected officials have required us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” DeVille says in the video. “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”
