Porn Sites Must Block VPNs To Comply With Indiana's Age-Verification Law, State Suggests in New Lawsuit
It's an insane—and frighteningly dystopian—interpretation of the law.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is suing dozens of porn websites, claiming that they are in violation of the state's age-verification law and seeking "injunctive relief, civil penalties, and recovery of costs incurred to investigate and maintain the action."
Last year, Indiana Senate Bill 17 mandated that websites featuring "material harmful to minors" must verify that visitors are age 18 or above. Rather than start checking IDs, Aylo—the parent company of Pornhub and an array of other adult websites—responded by blocking access for Indiana residents.
Now, Indiana says this is not good enough. To successfully comply, Pornhub and other Aylo platforms (which include Brazzers, Youporn, and Redtube, among others) must also block virtual private networks and other tools that allow internet users to mask their IP addresses, the state suggests.
You are reading Sex & Tech, from Elizabeth Nolan Brown. Get more of Elizabeth's sex, tech, bodily autonomy, law, and online culture coverage.
This is an insane—and frighteningly dystopian—interpretation of the law.
Broad Anti-Privacy Logic
In a section of the suit detailing how Aylo allegedly violated the age-check law, Indiana notes that last July, "an investigator employed by the Office of the Indiana Attorney General ('OAG Investigator') accessed Pornhub.com from Indiana using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with a Chicago, Illinois IP address."
"Defendants have not implemented any reasonable form of age verification on its website Pornhub.com," the suit states. It goes on to detail how Indiana investigators also accessed Brazzers.com, Faketaxi.com, Spicevids.com, and other adult websites using a VPN.
The state argues that because some Indiana residents could use tools to get around location-based blocks, location-based blocks "are insufficient to comply with Indiana's Age Verification Law."
The logical conclusion from this is that if a porn platform doesn't want to check IDs or to stop existing, it must then stop anyone from using a VPN.
This is the sort of logic that won't stop with porn platforms, of course.
Increasingly, states are trying to require social media platforms, app stores, and other web services to verify users' ages. Indiana's logic could be used to justify sanctioning all sorts of apps and services for failing to block VPNs and other anonymity-aiding tools.
Sure, you might prevent a few more teens from seeing boobs or watching TikTok videos, but at the cost of massively impeding privacy for people of all ages. It's a regrettable situation in any circumstance, but especially bad for people in countries or situations where free speech online could be dangerous or where repressive governments have blocked access to outside information. No longer could they turn to popular social media platforms to access news or communicate with wider audiences.
And, of course, people aren't always using VPNs to hide their location. VPNs are also used by people whose employers require them in order to access work email and websites, college students and faculty who may need them to access school websites, and others.
The logic of Indiana's lawsuit also justifies action against privacy measures of all sorts. For instance: Might companies that sell clothing that help people avoid facial recognition cameras be liable for helping people avoid detection?
Liability Based 'on the Failure To Accomplish Impossibilities'
The Rokita lawsuit accuses Aylo and its affiliate companies of violating not just the Indiana age-verification law (Senate Bill 17) but also its Deceptive Consumer Sales Act.
"Defendants' misrepresentations regarding the extent to which Indiana residents, including Indiana minors, could continue to access adult oriented websites after passage of Indiana's Age Verification Law were unfair, abusive, and deceptive," the suit claims.
David Greene of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called this "quite ridiculous."
"What the state's lawsuit seems to be doing is saying that Aylo deceived Indiana consumers when it said it was geoblocking Indiana users from its sites when it knew that VPN users might be able to evade that geoblock," Greene told AVN. "It essentially bases liability on the failure to accomplish impossibilities."
It's also part of two larger trends when it comes to online censorship and surveillance: trying to use deceptive trade practices to punish online entities for not suppressing certain sorts of content, and trying to ban VPNs and other tools that may help people avoid any number of state- or country-specific internet restrictions.
The latter represents a disturbing doubling down on attempts to end online privacy and anonymity. Politicians and regulators have been repeatedly warned that age-verification laws won't actually stop people from viewing porn, or using social media, or whatever it is that's deemed in need of restrictions, since the internet is global and there are many ways around location-specific rules. Rather than accept that these sorts of invasive schemes won't work and come with all sorts of negative side effects, they're intent on enacting even more invasive schemes with even more side effects.
"Aylo has restricted access to its platforms for users in Indiana, and in doing so, is fully compliant with the law," an Aylo spokesperson told AVN.
Watch Reason's Big Tech Debate
Did we deserve to lose? Reason's latest debate, in which Robby Soave and I argued against Breaking Points' Emily Jashinsky and Ryan Grim about Big Tech, is now online. Watch or listen here and tell us what you think. (If you don't have time for the whole thing, I urge you to at least check out my portion of the prop section, around minute 58.)
Two Victories for Free Speech Online
Two wins this week for tech-industry trade group NetChoice: A U.S. district court permanently blocked a Louisiana law requiring age verification by social media platforms, and another court issued a preliminary injunction against an Arkansas law that restricts "addictive" algorithms and requires social media sites to somehow protect minors from drug use, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and more.
In the former, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana struck down Louisiana Act 456, saying that conditioning access to protected speech (vis-à-vis social media platforms) on submitting to age-verification measures is unconstitutional. States can't use a "free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed," wrote Judge John W. deGravelles in his decision.
"This permanent injunction joins a growing list of federal court victories for NetChoice, following similar rulings in Ohio (NetChoice v. Yost) and Arkansas (NetChoice v. Griffin)," wrote NetChoice on X.
In NetChoice v. Griffin, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas this week granted a preliminary injunction against Arkansas Act 901. That means the law can't be enforced as NetChoice's lawsuit against it plays out. "This decision is a win for free speech in Arkansas, but it is also a signal to lawmakers across the country—including on Capitol Hill—that laws imposing liability on social media for displaying fully protected speech are unconstitutional," suggested NetChoice's Paul Taske.
The Arkansas ruling is also another reminder "that algorithms are protected by the First Amendment," notes NetChoice.
More Sex & Tech News
• Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D–R.I.) and Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) have announced plans to file a bill that would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Sen. WHITEHOUSE: We finally are moving to file a bipartisan Section 230 repeal bill. Waiting any longer serves no useful purpose. pic.twitter.com/4sD8hxXIMl
— Senate Judiciary Democrats ???????? (@JudiciaryDems) December 12, 2025
• Scott Yenor, director of the Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation, calls for updating state obscenity laws to include many depictions of "deviate sexual intercourse, female genitals, masochism, [and] nudity," among other things, and for states to "deal with the issue of live-camera sexual performances, perhaps under prostitution statutes."
• The Center for Christian Virtue (CCV) "began as a little-known group of anti-pornography crusaders in Cincinnati over 40 years ago. Now, it is Ohio's largest Christian policy group with headquarters directly across from the Statehouse," The Cincinnati Enquirer reports. "Over the past decade, CCV has lobbied on more than 300 bills" and "become a policy powerhouse in Ohio."
• Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is "full of righteous indignation about the impact of social media on children" and "believes tech companies should be confronted like the opioid makers of yesteryear"—and Jonathan Martin, Politico's politics bureau chief, really wants him to run for president because of it.
Today's Image
