404 Media

2025-12-02 15:56:38

Half of the US Now Requires You to Upload Your ID or Scan Your Face to Watch Porn

As of this week, half of the states in the U.S. are under restrictive age verification laws that require adults to hand over their biometric and personal identification to access legal porn.

Missouri became the 25th state to enact its own age verification law on Sunday. As it’s done in multiple other states, Pornhub and its network of sister sites—some of the largest adult content platforms in the world—pulled service in Missouri, replacing their homepages with a video of performer Cherie DeVille speaking about the privacy risks and chilling effects of age verification.

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The other states include Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, Montana, North Carolina, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Indiana, Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Arizona, and Ohio.

“As you may know, your elected officials in Missouri are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk,” DeVille says in the video. On the blocked homepages there’s also a link to an explanation of the “Restricted to Adults,” or RTA label, which porn site administrators place on their sites to signal to device-based parental controls that the websites are inappropriate for minors.

Like most of the other 24 laws across the country, Missouri’s age verification law requires websites containing more than one third of material that’s considered “harmful to minors,” or sexual content, to perform age verification checks. Similar or more restrictive laws have swept the country since Louisiana became the first state to enact age verification legislation in 2023.

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Age verification laws reach beyond porn sites, however. In Wyoming, South Dakota, Mississippi and Ohio, where the laws are written broadly enough to cover social media sites and any platform hosting adult content, Bluesky users have to submit to a face scan by the third-party company Yoti or upload a photo of their credit card to verify they’re over 18 years of age. In July, Bluesky started requiring all UK users to verify their ages in response to the Online Safety Act. We’ve previously reported on the security risks in uploading sensitive personal data to identity verification services, including the potential for hackers to then get ahold of that information themselves. In October, after Discord started requiring UK users to verify ages, the platform announced hackers breached one of its third-party vendors that handles age-related appeals, and said it identified around 70,000 users who may have had their government ID photos exposed as part of the breach.

Last week, Pornhub’s parent company Aylo sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft, urging them to support device-based age verification in their app stores and operating systems, WIRED reported. “Based on our real-world experience with existing age assurance laws, we strongly support the initiative to protect minors online,” Anthony Penhale, chief legal officer for Aylo, said in the letter. “However, we have found site-based age assurance approaches to be fundamentally flawed and counterproductive.”

Instead of protecting minors, age verification laws spike usage of virtual private networks and send users—including, potentially, minors—to unregulated or unmoderated sites that don’t care about complying with U.S. or UK laws. In Missouri, searches for VPNs spiked following the law’s enactment.

Missouri schools are not required to teach sex education, leaving it up to local school boards to decide what, if anything, children are taught about sexual health. School districts that do teach sex ed are required to promote abstinence, a modality long recognized as ineffective at protecting children from engaging in risky sexual behaviors. Even if a district offers sex ed, parents are allowed to pull their kids out of that class altogether. But despite research showing age verification laws don’t work either, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway believes forcing adults to undergo age verification protects the children in her state. “We are proud to stand on the side of parents, families and basic decency. Missouri will not apologize for protecting children,” Hanaway said in a press release.

Do age-verification laws work? Not according to this study.

People seem to be working around them, according to their Google searches.

^{Anna Iovine (Mashable)}

404 Media

2025-11-20 15:45:13

OnlyFans Will Start Checking Criminal Records. Creators Say That's a Terrible Idea

OnlyFans will start running background checks on people signing up as content creators, the platform’s CEO recently announced.

As reported by adult industry news outlet XBIZ, OnlyFans CEO Keily Blair announced the partnership in a LinkedIn post. Blair doesn’t say in the post when the checks will be implemented, whether all types of criminal convictions will bar creators from signing up, if existing creators will be checked as well, or what countries’ criminal records will be checked.

OnlyFans did not respond to 404 Media's request for comment.

“I am very proud to add our partnership with Checkr Trust to our onboarding process in the US,” Blair wrote. “Checkr, Inc. helps OnlyFans to prevent people who have a criminal conviction which may impact on our community's safety from signing up as a Creator on OnlyFans. It’s collaborations like this that make the real difference behind the scenes and keep OnlyFans a space where creators and fans feel secure and empowered.”

Many OnlyFans creators turned to the platform, and to online sex work more generally, when they’re not able to obtain employment at traditional workplaces. Some sex workers doing in-person work turned to online sex work as a way to make ends meet—especially after the passage of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act in 2018 made it much more difficult to screen clients for escorting. And in-person sex work is still criminalized in the U.S. and many other countries.

“Criminal background checks will not stop potential predators from using the platform (OF), it will only harm individuals who are already at higher risk. Sex work has always had a low barrier to entry, making it the most accessible career for people from all walks of life,” performer GoAskAlex, who’s on OnlyFans and other platforms, told me in an email. “Removing creators with criminal/arrest records will only push more vulnerable people (overwhelmingly, women) to street based/survival sex work. Adding more barriers to what is arguably the safest form of sex work (online sex work) will push sex industry workers to less and less safe options.”

Jessica Starling, who also creates adult content on OnlyFans, told me in a call that their first thought was that if someone using OnlyFans has a prostitution charge, they might not be able to use the platform. “If they're trying to transition to online work, they won’t be able to do that anymore,” they said. “And the second thing I thought was that it's just invasive and overreaching... And then I looked up the company, and I'm like, ‘Oh, wow, this is really bad.’”

Checkr is reportedly used by Uber, Instacart, Shipt, Postmates, and Lyft, and lists many more companies like Dominos and Doordash on its site as clients. The company has been sued hundreds of times for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act or other consumer credit complaints. The Fair Credit Reporting Act says that companies providing information to consumer reporting agencies are legally obligated to investigate disputed information. And a lot of people dispute the information Checkr and Inflection provide on them, claiming mixed-up names, acquittals, and decades-old misdemeanors or traffic tickets prevented them from accessing platforms that use background checking services.

Checkr regularly acquires other background checking and age verification companies, and acquired a background check company called Inflection in 2022. At the time, I found more than a dozen lawsuits against Inflection alone in a three year span, many of them from people who found out about the allegedly inaccurate reports Inflection kept about them after being banned from Airbnb after the company claimed they failed checks.

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“Sex workers face discrimination when leaving the sex trade, especially those who have been face-out and are identifiable in the online world. Facial recognition technology has advanced to a point where just about anyone can ascertain your identity from a single picture,” Alex said. “Leaving the online sex trade is not as easy as it once was, and anything you've done online will follow you for a lifetime. Creators who are forced to leave the platform will find that safe and stable alternatives are far and few between.”

Last month, Pornhub announced that it would start performing background checks on existing content partners—which primarily include studios—next year. "To further protect our creators and users, all new applicants must now complete a criminal background check during onboarding," the platform announced in a newsletter to partners, as reported by AVN.

Alex said she believes background checks in the porn industry could be beneficial, under very specific circumstances. “I do not think that someone with egregious history of sexual violence should be allowed to work in the sex trade in any capacity—similarly, a person convicted of hurting children should be not able to work with children—so if the criminal record checks were searching specifically for sex based offences I could see the benefit, but that doesn't appear to be the case (to my knowledge). What's to stop OnlyFans from deactivating someone's account due to a shoplifting offense?” she said. “I'd like to know more about what they're searching for with these background checks.”

Even with third-party companies like Checkr doing the work, as is the case with third-party age verification that’s swept the U.S. and targeted the porn industry, increased data means increased risk of it being leaked or hacked. Last year, a background check company called National Public Data claimed it was breached by hackers who got the confidential data of 2.9 billion people. The unencrypted data was then sold on the dark web.

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“It’s dangerous for anyone, but it's especially dangerous for us [adult creators] because we're more vulnerable anyway. Especially when you're online, you're hypervisible,” Starling said. “It doesn't protect anyone except OnlyFans themselves, the company.”

OnlyFans became the household name in independent porn because of the work of its adult content creators. Starling mentioned that because the platform has dominated the market, it’s difficult to just go to another platform if creators don’t want to be subjected to background checks. “We're put in a position where we have very limited power," they said. "So when a platform decides to do something like this, we’re kind of screwed, right?”

Earlier this year, OnlyFans owner Fenix International Ltd reportedly entered talks to sell the company to an investor group at a valuation of around $8 billion.

Pornhub Is Now Blocked In Almost All of the U.S. South

As of today, three more states join the list of 17 that can't access Pornhub because of age verification laws.

^{Samantha Cole (404 Media)}

404 Media

2025-11-12 15:08:42

Major Porn Studios Join Forces to Establish Industry ‘Code of Conduct’

Six of the biggest porn studios in the world, including industry giant and Pornhub parent company Ayl o, announced Wednesday they have formed a first-of-its-kind coalition called the Adult Studio Alliance (ASA). The alliance’s purpose is to “contribute to a safe, healthy, dignified, and respectful adult industry for performers,” the ASA told 404 Media.

“This alliance is intended to unite professionals creating adult content (from studios to crews to performers) under a common set of values and guidelines. In sharing our common standards, we hope to contribute to a safe, healthy, dignified, and respectful adult industry for performers,” a spokesperson for ASA told 404 Media in an email. “As a diverse group of studios producing a large volume and variety of adult content, we believe it’s key to promote best practices on all our scenes. We all come from different studios, but we share the belief that all performers are entitled to comfort and safety on set.”

The founding members include Aylo, Dorcel, ERIKALUST, Gamma Entertainment, Mile High Media and Ricky’s Room. Aylo owns some of the biggest platforms and porn studios in the industry, including Brazzers, Reality Kings, Digital Playground and more.

In a press release Wednesday, the ASA said its primary mission is “to publish and adhere to a comprehensive Code of Conduct, providing a structured framework for directors, producers, and talent to ensure the safest possible sets and consistent industry best practices.” The ASA’s code of conduct addresses performers’ rights to consent to the types of scenes they’ll shoot, their scene partners including extras, sexual acts, script and creative documents, the length of the shoot day, location, remuneration and conditions, and any other rights involved in their agreement with the studio.

The founding studios say they have signed agreements to adhere to the ASA’s code of conduct, but the ASA “encourages all studios, members or not, to adopt and adhere to these guidelines to foster a safer, more respectful, and more professional adult industry,” the spokesperson said.

“All performers have the right to be treated with professional respect and dignity, free from harassment of any kind,” the code states. “They should be: Able to refuse, at any time, any act, even if previously agreed upon; Able to visually confirm their partner’s STI test status on set before any sexual performance; Provided water, snacks, meals, breaks, and privacy as needed; Provided all necessary sexual health and hygienic materials needed to perform; Paid their agreed-upon rate for the date of production.”

The code also outlines rights and expectations for third-party producers and crew members, including verifying performers’ ages, ensuring an environment “free of harassment of any kind (mental, physical or sexual),” and “never using their influence or access to the studio to pressure performers or promise work.” Agencies and talent agents are also addressed in the code of conduct: “Agencies should represent and protect performers, inform them very clearly of the specific requirements of pornographic performances,” the code states. “They must inform performers of their rights and duties and legitimate expectations, with no expectation of sexual contact with agency staff, reasonably limited contract terms (within industry standard range of 1 year), and no punitive buyouts for performers who choose to leave the agency.”

A need for more autonomy over one’s working conditions spurred the rise of the independent adult content creator economy in the last 10 years, as more performers moved away from studio work—which often dictates workers’ hours, physical location, and ownership rights to their performances, and can be sporadic—to models like webcamming and subscription platforms like OnlyFans. Porn is legal in the U.S. but is still a heavily stigmatized career, and performers have reported that legislation like 2018’s Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act have made their livelihoods more precarious, even when working with studios.

In 2020, as Hollywood reckoned with allegations of abuse and coercion against the most powerful people in the entertainment industry, multiple performers came forward with their own stories of physical and mental abuse on-set. The power dynamic present in mainstream acting careers also exists in porn, with the added stigma of sex work: adult performers, like mainstream entertainment professionals or many other industries, might feel like they risk being ostracized within their industry for speaking out about mistreatment, but they also may feel a risk fueling decades-old anti-porn campaigns and their harmful rhetoric.

Many studios have previously established their own codes of conduct, including Gamma Entertainment-owned Adult Time, which published a guide to “what to expect on an Adult Time set” in 2023, and Kink, which published its shooting protocols, consent documents and checklists in 2019. There are also several talent-focused rights groups, like the Free Speech Coalition, that have operated with performer and crew wellbeing guidelines in place for years.

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“The landscape for adult production has expanded rapidly over the past few years, so it's encouraging to see bigger studios codify industry best practices,” Mike Stabile, director of public policy at the Free Speech Coalition, told 404 Media. Stabile noted that the needs and requirements of productions and performers vary; independent content creators working with other indie creators might not need or have the resources to hire an intimacy coordinator on each shoot, for example, or a small fetish studio that doesn’t engage in fluid exchange might not need to adhere to testing. But “it sets a bar for what performers can and should expect in production, and provides a framework for understanding one's rights on set,” he said.
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“It's incredibly powerful because it isn't just one studio or one group, it's a collection of some of the most influential leaders in adult production,” Stabile said. “While these practices aren't entirely new, by publishing guidelines they're creating a broad system of accountability. Whether or not other studios join and sign-on, I expect we'll see broader adoption of these protocols at all levels.”

“I believe strong production standards are the foundation of a safe and respectful and successful industry, and I’ve always believed performers deserve nothing less,” performer Cherie DeVille said in the ASA press release. “It's powerful to see these top studios come together with the shared goal of ensuring performer wellness remains a top priority.”

What to Expect on an Adult Time Set - Adult Time Blog

Learn more about working with us through our "What to Expect on Set" campaign and explore Adult Time's new Performer Center.

^{Blog Admin (Adult Time)}

404 Media

2025-10-16 14:19:34

GirlsDoPorn Victims Sue Major Payment Processors, Claiming They Enabled Sex Trafficking

Three victims of sex trafficking ring GirlsDoPorn brought a complaint against multiple companies that processed payments for the criminal organization, claiming that without their payment services, GirlsDoPorn would never have existed.

GirlsDoPorn was a criminal enterprise that coerced primarily high-school and college aged women with no experience in the adult industry into appearing in pornographic videos, by convincing them they were signing up for modeling gigs and telling them the videos would never be posted online. The ring was masterminded by Michael Pratt, who alongside multiple co-conspirators was charged with federal counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion in 2019. A federal judge sentenced Pratt to 27 years in prison last month, and most of his co-conspirators have also been sentenced to years or decades in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

The lawsuit, brought by three women who appeared in the videos, seeks to become a class-action complaint on behalf of anyone who appeared in at least one pornographic video on GirlsDoPorn and its sister site GirlsDoToys between 2009 and 2019—which could include up to 300 more individuals, the complaint estimates. They allege that CCBill, Epoch, First Data Merchant Services, Total System Services, and a number of unnamed banks knowingly participated in GirlsDoPorn’s sex trafficking venture by providing it payment services.

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The complaint was filed on Monday by several attorneys who’ve represented GirlsDoPorn victims since the civil case which went to trial in 2019. The defendant payment service companies generated “millions in fees for themselves and tens of millions for GirlsDoPorn,” the complaint claims. “By doing so, Defendants turned the victims’ sex acts into ‘commercial sex acts,’ a crucial element of sex trafficking under Section 1591 [the U.S. sex trafficking legal code]. Without Defendants’ payment network, GirlsDoPorn would have never been able to exist.”

CCBill is one of the most popular handlers of online porn payments and subscriptions. Epoch, another longtime service in the adult industry, was GirlsDoPorn’s payment facilitator, which acts as a gateway between credit card companies and merchants like porn sites. Total System Services and First Data were GirlsDoPorn’s payment processors, the complaint alleges, while the yet-unnamed banks settled the payments for GirlsDoPorn.

“Given the integral role of payment processing to the business of Internet pornography, GirlsDoPorn would never have become or remained a viable enterprise absent Defendants’ participation in the sex trafficking venture,” the plaintiffs argue. “GirlsDoPorn would never have achieved the level of success it did without Defendants actively assisting, supporting, and facilitating its unlawful business with streams of revenue.”

The plaintiffs claim that the defendants, as part of running their businesses, should have known GirlsDoPorn was a criminal enterprise, pointing to GirlsDoPorn’s own website and messaging as evidence: “Indeed, when it was launched, GirlsDoPorn’s website openly bragged about using fraud to lure a victim under the guise of a modeling advertisement—’She contacted us regarding an ad I had placed for beauty models wanted, having no idea it was actually for adult videos instead ha :)’” the complaint states. The plaintiffs also point to Reddit posts made by GirlsDoPorn victims talking about being abused, and the boasting GirlsDoPorn operators did on the website about how the women were “first-timers,” caught in their bait-and-switch scheme who would shoot porn for the “studio” exclusively, and weren’t part of the adult industry as a career choice.

“As the years went by, Defendants ignored dozens of red flags indicating GirlsDoPorn was a sex trafficking venture,” the complaint states. By 2017, they allege, defendants “could no longer feign ignorance of GirlsDoPorn’s illegal business practices” because the plantiffs served the defendants a subpoena as part of the civil case in San Diego seeking records related to GirlsDoPorn.

The defendants continued processing payments for the organization until October 2019, the plaintiffs claim, at which point everyone involved was arrested or indicted on federal sex trafficking charges and the websites went offline. “Only then did Defendants stop processing payments forGirlsDoPorn, but it was not by choice,” the complaint claims. “Any ignorance Defendants may have had to GirlsDoPorn’s illegal business practices prior to October 2019 is a direct result of Defendants’ own negligence, recklessness, or willful desire to remain ignorant, which is no defense under Section 1595.”

In addition to certifying the class action and a jury trial, the plaintiffs seek damages exceeding $1 million for each member of the class, restitution for what CCBill and Epoch earned from GirlsDoPorn, punitive damages, and attorney fees.

CCBill and Epoch did not respond to requests for comment. Fiserv, which owns First Data, and Total System Services did not immediately respond to comment requests.

18 U.S. Code § 1591 - Sex trafficking of children or by force, fraud, or coercion

^{Office of the Law Revision Counsel (LII / Legal Information Institute)}