Adult site Pornhub disabled its website in Texas, USA on Thursday. This was done after a federal appeals court upheld a new state law requiring adult sites to verify a user’s age. Hence, residents of Texas are finding it difficult to access the site. Currently, anyone who has a Texas IP is blocked from accessing the adult website.
Pornhub elected to block access in Texas instead of putting an age verification system in place. Texans trying to access the site encountered the message displayed below.
Naturally, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are the default option to bypass geo-restricted websites. Reports indicate that adult content enthusiasts in Texas are scrambling to bypass the content block. SlashGear investigated search data for the 10 most popular VPN software in the past 10 days. The platform reported a spike in traffic for VPN searches by over 1,500 percent.
Further, there is a 1,600 percent increase for the phrase “How to access Pornhub.” Searches for “Texas VPN” surged by 1,750 percent in just under 24 hrs. After the ban was enforced, Proton VPN experienced a traffic surge on its website by 4,750 percent.
VPN Searches in Texas
From SlashGear’s analysis, the numbers were as shown below:
1. Proton VPN – 4,750 percent
2. Open GX Mobile VPN – 300 percent
3. VPN hub – 300 percent
4. Tunnelbear – 130 percent
5. NordVPN – 100 percent
6. Mullvad VPN – 100 percent
7. Windscribe – 80 percent
8. Browsec VPN – 80 percent
9. Firefox VPN – 70 percent
10. Opera VPN – 50 percent
There was also a significant rise in queries for “Create Pornhub account,”. Clearly, people in the Lone Star State are lonely without the website. Although Pornhub requires one to consent that they are over 18 years old, it currently does not require any ID Verification.
In today’s world, VPN technology has become crucial as more people are using the internet today. For those in search of a VPN, it is important to learn the best ways to choose one so as to remain secure and private online.
