A popular Texas online adult film website has issued a Texas Department of Health and Human Services disclaimer warning visitors of unproven health risks of viewing pornographic content. This comes after a U.S. appeals court temporarily overturned an order blocking a Texas law requiring porn sites to verify users' ages and display government health warnings.
Despite not requiring age verification, each of VixenMediaGroup's sites (including Deeper, Blacked, and Vixen) now displays de facto controversial disclaimers warning that pornographic content "may be biologically addictive" and "has been shown to impair human brain development" to users within the state of Texas.
The pop-ups also claim porn "increases demand for prostitution, child exploitation and child pornography" and that exposure to porn is linked to "emotional and mental illness."
It's unclear how long these disclaimers have been online, but they appear to be in response to Texas HB1181, which was originally scheduled to take effect on September 1 but was hotly debated in court. HB1181 requires adult websites to display disclaimers and verify users’ age using government-issued identification. However, a district judge agreed to block the move in late August after a group of adult entertainment activists and companies, including Pornhub, Brazzers and the Free Speech Alliance, filed complaints that the move was unconstitutional.
The lawsuit criticized the health warnings required by the law, calling them "a mixture of lies, discredited pseudoscience and baseless accusations" and a "prime example of the state forcing orthodoxy on a controversial issue." District Judge David Alan Ezra agreed, rejecting age verification rules and health disclaimers. "Although these warnings bear the label 'Texas Department of Health and Human Services,' it appears that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission has not yet made these findings or announcements," Ezra wrote in the Aug. 31 decision.
However, on September 19, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the injunction, which blocked the law from being implemented while arguments were scheduled. The court offered no explanation, adding only that the appeal would be "expedited" to the next oral argument panel.
Some states have enacted rules that restrict how pornographic websites operate, affecting how they operate in parts of the United States. After Arkansas passed an age verification law for adult websites in August, Pornhub operator MindGeek responded by blocking all Arkansas users. MindGeek has imposed the same ban on other states with similar laws, including Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.
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