Authorities in the Sunshine State are moving to uphold state law and protect children from the scourge of pornography. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) announced a lawsuit this week against major pornography websites for violating the state’s age verification law, which went into effect on January 1. Florida’s HB 3 law requires pornographic websites to verify that individuals attempting to access those pornographic websites are 18 years of age or older. Shortly before going into effect, the law prompted PornHub, the world’s largest pornographic website, to cease operations in Florida.

Several other porn websites, however, have not only not ceased to operate in Florida but have also failed or refused to comply with the age verification law. Uthmeier previously sent letters to the graphic websites in April, warning that their failure to comply with state law would result in legal action, but when the porn websites refused to comply, he sued the parent companies of several explicit websites as well as advertiser Traffic Factory.

“Multiple porn companies are flagrantly breaking Florida’s age verification law by exposing children to harmful, explicit content. As a father of young children, and as Attorney General, this is completely unacceptable,” Uthmeier said in a statement. He added, “We are taking legal action against these online pornographers who are willfully preying on the innocence of children for their financial gain.”

A copy of the lawsuit, obtained by The Washington Stand, states, “Access to online pornography is a pervasive threat to the health and well-being of children and adolescents. An estimated 50 percent of all internet traffic is related to sex, and children and adolescents are routinely exposed to pornography online.” The lawsuit says that the pornography websites “publish sexually explicit material online that is harmful to minors. [Porn site 1] and [porn site 2] are free to access and receive hundreds of millions of visits monthly worldwide — and several million in Florida alone. [Porn site 3] offers mostly paid sexually explicit content with explicit free previews and receives hundreds of thousands of visits monthly worldwide.”

The pornography websites “know that they are subject to Florida’s age-verification requirements. A blog post linked at the top of [two prominent porn sites] decries age verification and bemoans that compliance with age-verification requirements would hurt their bottom line,” the lawsuit states. It adds, “Despite knowing that they must comply with Florida’s age-verification law, the Pornographers have openly defied this law since it since it took effect January 1, 2025.” It continues:

“Each day that the Pornographers continue to violate Florida’s age-verification law, they rack up tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of violations of these provisions and of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. … Motivated by greed, the Pornographers willfully prey on the children and adolescents of Florida to the detriment of their health and well-being.”

The lawsuit is intended to “put an end to the Pornographers’ shameful and malicious infliction of harm on children and adolescents in Florida.” It asserts, “On behalf of all minor residents of Florida, the Attorney General seeks to compel the Pornographers to comply with their obligations under Florida’s age-verification law … to stop the unfair and deceptive business practices that the Pornographers have used to build a vast and lucrative Florida user base that includes vulnerable children and adolescents.” Uthmeier requested both civil penalties and punitive damages, in addition to demanding that the pornography companies comply with the state’s law.

Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, said in comments to TWS, “Attorney General Uthmeier is setting a great example for AGs across the country. Companies that profit off the sexual exploitation of children should be run out of business.” She continued, “Despite multiple warnings to follow the law requiring age verification to access pornographic material, these companies continued to poison the minds of children — undoubtedly addicting many of them.”

Szoch further emphasized, “Pornography robs people of their ability to love properly — it places the self at the center and uses others as objects for gratification. It has no place in America — especially not in the lives of minors. I’m grateful to the good work of AG Uthmeier protecting the children of Florida. Now it’s time for the rest of the country to step up and do the same.”

Dani Pinter, chief legal counsel and director of the Law Center at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, told The Washington Stand, “We commend Florida Attorney General Uthmeier for taking action to protect children from harmful pornography.” Pinter added, “These lawsuits send a clear message to pornography websites that if they cannot comply with Florida’s age verification law, they will face accountability.”

Florida is one of 19 states to have age verification laws on the books, which include Alabama, Arkansas, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. Meanwhile, Arizona, North and South Dakota, Ohio, Missouri, and Wyoming have passed age verification bills this year, and similar bills are working their way through state legislatures in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

In many of the states with age verification laws currently on the books, PornHub’s parent company — formerly called MindGeek, now called Aylo — has completely cut off access to its pornographic websites. Users in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia have been blocked from accessing PornHub and other Aylo websites and have instead been met with a message from the company criticizing the age verification laws.

A coalition of companies, including PornHub, challenged Texas’s age verification law, and the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In June, the court’s majority of Republican-appointed justices ruled that age verification laws to protect children from online pornography are not unconstitutional and can be enforced. Pornography companies had similarly challenged Florida’s law but, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, dropped their lawsuit.