Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is waging a first-of-its-kind attack against pornographic websites in his state—a move that’s forced industry giant Pornhub to flee as he pursues millions of dollars in fines for sites failing to comply with a new age verification law.
His success has the attention of other state AGs.
Texas is among a growing number of states requiring porn sites to confirm a user’s age. But for now it stands alone in its aggressive pursuit of heavy fines and widespread litigation. The main difference between Texas and the other states is Paxton himself—and Texas’s novel strategy placing him in charge of compliance.
Paxton is a conservative hardliner who has taken up separate fights against drag shows and raising the minimum age to work in a strip club, even as he fought his own impeachment trial in the Texas Senate and managed to settle nine-year-old felony securities fraud charges against him. He has made Texas the only state to actually enforce its age check law by filing lawsuits against six pornographic companies since February, settling one for $675,000—the first such settlement in the country.
Copycat laws have sprung up in six other right-leaning states that will soon sic their attorneys general on adult sites. Age verification laws passed in earlier states left enforcement to private individuals, an expensive option resulting in few, if any, cases filed anywhere.
Paxton, who Donald Trump says he’ll consider for US Attorney General, said in an email interview that enforcing age verification laws through private actions is ineffective because “understandably, many citizens do not want to become parties to litigation—especially against multi-million-dollar pornography companies.”
Pornhub disabled its site in Texas in March, two weeks after Paxton brought a $1.6 million lawsuit against its parent company, Aylo Global Entertainment. Multi Media LLC, which operates the site Chaturbate, promptly established age verification to resolve a suit from Paxton in April, in addition to paying the $675,000 settlement.
Four more companies face pending claims from Paxton in Texas state court, records show.
Legal Challenges
The method of enforcement has raised questions regarding whether it truly protects children, or simply pushes them to further and darker corners of the internet, said Mike Stabile, director of public affairs for Free Speech Coalition, a nonprofit that tracks age verification bills. It’s also flagged privacy and First Amendment concerns.
“If you want to fuel the growth of the worst sites on the internet this is what these laws are doing,” said Stabile.
Texas’s age check law (H.B. 1181) faces First Amendment challenges in federal court. The Supreme Court in April said the law can remain in effect while it decides whether to hear an appeal of Texas’s win at the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And Louisiana, Utah, and Montana also have age verification laws facing legal challenges.
None of that is stopping others, particularly red states, from pursuing the strategy.
“When Attorney General Paxton does things oftentimes they get more attention” than other attorneys general, said Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, a conservative nonprofit that helped draft Texas’s age-check law.
Paxton said Texas is “proud to be at the forefront” of enforcing the law through his office, adding, “I’m glad that other states see the urgency of taking similar steps.”
Texas’s Copycats
Seven of the 11 states with age-check laws coming online by January 2025 assign enforcement to their attorney general, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of research from Free Speech Coalition. That includes Tennessee, whose AG has authority to prosecute non-complying sites on felony criminal charges, as well as Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Florida.
“I hope our attorney general is extremely aggressive—as aggressive as the law allows him to be,” said Oklahoma Sen. Jerry Alvord, a Republican who sponsored an age-check law going into effect in November.
Louisiana beat Texas by a month in introducing an age-check law with AG enforcement last year. However, the office under Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) and ex-AG Jeff Landry (R), who was elected governor last year, hasn’t brought claims against any sites, a spokesman in the office said.
Indiana Sen. Mike Bohacek (R) said he pushed for AG enforcement in his state because “the AG has investigatory tools” not available to regular citizens.
“This is not going to stop kids from accessing this material 100%, but will it take care of the majority of it? Yeah, I think so,” said Bohacek, whose state’s law goes into effect July 1.
Many sites called various states’ bluff on verification laws enforced by the private suit model. They’d rather risk being drawn into court than maintain a lengthy verification system that can drive away visitors.
However, that calculation is shifting in states with AG enforcement, where fines can cripple even major porn distributors. In Texas, companies without proper age verification are subject to fines of up to $10,000 per day, and $250,000 if a child user is exposed to pornographic content. A $10,000 daily fine is imposed against entities illegally retaining identifying information.
Angela Paxton’s Amendment
Texas’s law initially called for enforcement through a private right of action, where individuals would have had to sue the porn companies. The House voted yes with bipartisan support, but before a second vote, the bill’s author, Rep. Matt Shaheen (R), brought the amendment shifting enforcement to the state through Paxton.
Shaheen said he doesn’t recall what led to the amendment. Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton (R), sponsored Shaheen’s bill in the Texas Senate. He insists “it had nothing to do with her marriage to the attorney general.”
Angela Paxton, whose office didn’t respond to a request for comment, later added a successful amendment allowing the attorney general to recover attorneys fees and costs incurred from actions taken under the law.
Shaheen said AG enforcement in the bill “really made it effective.”
Stabile disagreed, saying that if “you want to push the adult entertainment industry underground, this is the way to do it. If you want to protect kids, it’s terribly ineffective.” He said minors will consume porn from overseas sites, which can more easily evade consequences.
Paxton issued a warning to overseas sites that “wrongly believe Texas law cannot reach them.” Their noncompliance “will only serve to dramatically increase the penalties assessed against them,” he said.
Opponents of age verification laws further say enforcement should begin not with sites, but phones.
Shaheen said he agrees with that and will propose legislation requiring tech companies to implement age verification on electronic devices when Texas’s legislature returns in January.
“We’re going to give that a try next session,” he said.