A mother from Kansas has initiated lawsuits against multiple adult websites, accusing them of breaching the recently established age-verification law aimed at deterring minors from accessing explicit online content.
The lawsuits, which were filed on May 12, focus on Chaturbate.com, Jerkmate.com, Techpump (the owner of Superporn.com), and Titan Websites (the owner of Hentaicity.com). The complaints state that the woman’s 14-year-old child, referred to as “Q.R.,” accessed these websites after Kansas enacted its age-verification law in July 2024.
Per the new legislation, any website with over 25 percent of content deemed “harmful to minors”—which includes nudity and sexually explicit material according to Kansas law—must verify the ages of users using a commercially accessible database or another “commercially reasonable” approach, such as government-issued identification or facial recognition technology. The law permits individuals to report violations to the state attorney general, who may impose financial penalties. Parents or guardians may also file individual lawsuits.
The mother alleges that her child accessed the adult sites via an outdated laptop that belonged to a family friend. The lawsuits claim that the teen experienced emotional and psychological damage as a result, including mental distress, loss of enjoyment in life, and the requirement for medical intervention.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), a group advocating against pornography, is representing the plaintiff. “Kansas law mandates pornography companies to adopt reasonable age-verification methods, and the companies listed in these lawsuits failed to meet this requirement,” stated Dani Pinter, NCOSE’s senior vice president and legal director, in a press release. The group maintains that such laws are crucial for safeguarding children from harmful materials.
Nonetheless, critics are skeptical about the efficacy and ramifications of these laws. A recent study from NYU indicates that age-verification strategies frequently fail to stop minors from viewing adult content, primarily due to non-compliance from sites. Furthermore, minors can use tools such as VPNs to circumvent geographic restrictions.
Advocates for free speech and digital rights have expressed worry that age-verification laws might endanger internet privacy and security. The Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes sexual freedom, argues that there is no supporting evidence of a significant rise in minors viewing pornography.
These laws have found support among conservative legislators, some of whom aim to eradicate online pornography entirely. Project 2025, a policy agenda linked to a potential second Trump administration, seeks a nationwide prohibition on porn and criminal consequences for its producers. One of the project’s designers, Russell Vought, was recorded calling age-verification laws a “backdoor” approach to banning pornography. Vought presently holds the position of director of the Office of Management and Budget.
While certain sites like Pornhub have opted to block access in Kansas and other states with analogous laws, citing compliance burdens, others continue to function without age verification checks. In the leaked recording, Vought conceded that such results were intentional: “The porn company then says, ‘We’re not going to do business in your state.’ Which of course is entirely what we were after, right?”
These lawsuits follow a similar legal action filed in January by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach against the owner of 13 adult websites for purportedly violating the same law. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of Texas’s age-verification law in the case Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, with a decision anticipated shortly.