Chaturbate will pay $675,000 in fines for not adhering to a new law in Texas that requires all porn sites to verify the age of users, according to a new report from 404 Media which cites a court order released Friday.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Chaturbate, along with Pornhub, last month for ignoring the age verification law, which requires all adult websites to verify ages through a driver’s license or passport. And while Chaturbate has now implemented age verification, other sites like Pornhub and XHamster have opted to block access to their entire sites within the state of Texas.
Chaturbate is reportedly using a company called Incode to verify user ages, according to 404 Media, which also handles identity verification and fraud detection for mainstream banking clients.
Texas passed the age verification law, known as HB 1181 last year, which imposes fines of up to $20,000 per day for non-compliance. A fine of $250,000 is also tacked on if any minor is found to have accessed porn on the site. A group of porn sites sued Texas shortly after the law was passed but the notoriously conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state, allowing the law to stand.
Texas originally sought a $1.78 million fine against Chaturbate, calculated by the 178 days the company didn’t have age verification after the law was passed on September 1, 2023, according to the Laredo Morning Times. That figure was reduced to the $675,000 figure announced Friday in the settlement. Chaturbate, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has 30 days to pay the fine.
Paxton praised Chaturbate in a press release on Friday for opting to institute age verification two days after Texas filed its lawsuit against the company on March 19.
“It’s a very positive development that this company has decided to follow the law and begin reasonable age verification measures designed to protect Texas children from harmful material,” said Paxton. “Other pornography companies should follow this example and willingly choose to do the right thing and abide by the law.”
Texas isn’t alone in recently passing laws to require age verification for users of porn sites. Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia all have similar laws.
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