Overview
- Missouri is enforcing checks on sites where at least a third of content is pornographic, with Attorney General Catherine Hanaway promising vigorous enforcement as lawmakers move to codify the rule.
- The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ age-check law for adult sites, reinforcing a wave of roughly 25 state measures and spurring parallel rules for social media and app stores in several states.
- Platform responses have splintered access as Pornhub blocks users in 23 states and smaller services like Dreamwidth and Bluesky withdraw from Mississippi rather than face steep compliance costs.
- Verification systems carry significant data risks, highlighted by Discord’s disclosure that about 70,000 users’ IDs may have been exposed via a third-party vendor and prior leaks at another identity provider.
- Effectiveness is undercut by easy circumvention using VPNs, AI-generated IDs and fake selfies, with the UK’s Online Safety Act showing spillover to music, gaming and editorial platforms and reporting a 1,400% VPN sign-up surge at ProtonVPN.