How Age Verification Laws Targeting Online Porn Could Be (And Should Be) Viewed As A Labor Rights Issue 

Age verification laws and regulations that target online pornography and digital sex work are far from being the “modest” child safety measures intended to protect public decency favored by the far–right.

Proponents of these laws benefit from the fearmongering and framing of age verification as a necessity to protect children from inappropriate material found on the internet. But often in the discourse, there’s a clear detachment between the political motivations of lawmakers and the realities of being a sex worker or working in a profession that is directly impacted by age verification laws targeting unfavored speech.

Because of the detachment, implications are far-reaching. Laws that require “age assurance” regimes are a clear impediment to labor and the ability of sex workers to legally earn income. There needs to be further discussion and analysis of age verification laws as a labor issue, in addition to the underlying contexts of free speech rights. While not a traditional “labor issue,” like union rights and equal pay, the government’s role in regulating and restricting forms of expression that can be produced, distributed, and monetized for entertainment media consumption is a dimension of the age-gating issue often overlooked and/or ignored.

Digital sex workers’ incomes and living conditions are dependent on platforms for content distribution. Sites like OnlyFans, Pornhub, xHamster, Chaturbate, and literally thousands more grant performers and content creators access to revenue generation opportunities that are remote, distributed, and confidential. 

Due to these platforms forming the foundations of a trend-setting, technology-innovating, digitally native entertainment industry, age verification laws target digital sex workers’ means of distribution and, in a lot of cases, means of production. The overwhelming majority of adult content creators and adult performers are self-employed—classified as independent contractors and/or small business owners. Some performers have incorporated, with others adding trademarks and intellectual property protections on their branding.

Consider a few examples of adult content creators actively engaging in the activity of running a small business or self-employed enterprise. Platforms such as OnlyFans issue tax forms so that content creators can accurately report their income to the IRS and their state tax authorities. Or take the example of the performer-creator, going by the stage name Gigi Dior, duking it out with high-fashion house Christian Dior in front of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Activities and actions like these aren’t seen by the vast majority of consumers—or, importantly, the critics of the entire online adult ecosystem.

We all hear the “think of the children” mantra from the Helen Lovejoys of the world daily. We are seeing it now with Collective Shout teaming up with Visa and Mastercard to clamp down on NSFW gaming. We are seeing it in the United Kingdom with calls from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords to ban certain types of pornography to comply with a broad interpretation of the Online Safety Act of 2023.

At least 40 percent of all United States residents live in jurisdictions with age verification laws. Millions of adult content creators are diverse and dynamic. Faced with all of these mounting regulatory pressures, adult entertainment performers and adult content creators—particularly those operating with marginalized identities—have developed a range of creative strategies to sustain their work, visibility, and autonomy in the national digital space. Inaccessibility is a legitimate issue that goes far beyond concerns of consumers.

While these laws are often framed as protecting children, the actual barrier they create is for adults — the lawful consumers who make up the legitimate market for adult entertainment. Under laws like Texas’s HB 1181, anyone wanting to access adult content must submit government-issued ID or sensitive personal data to a third-party vendor. Many adults are unwilling to do this, not because they wish to evade age restrictions, but because they don’t trust where that data will go, how it will be stored, or who might access it.

The result is that large numbers of adults — the only legal audience for these performers in the first place — stop visiting legitimate platforms altogether. That loss of audience directly translates into a loss of income for adult content creators. For an industry where the majority of workers are self-employed, often operating as small businesses, the shrinkage of the paying customer base is an existential threat.

This is why age verification mandates should also be seen as a labor rights issue. They are not simply regulating content; they are regulating the ability of consenting adults to transact with one another in a lawful marketplace. By forcing privacy-invasive hurdles onto the consumer side, these laws effectively shut down the market for legal adult work, undermining the economic stability of performers and driving audiences toward unregulated, unsafe spaces.

Protecting minors is essential, but there are less harmful ways to do it — including privacy-preserving age estimation, community moderation, and robust sex education. Until lawmakers acknowledge this labor dimension, age verification laws will continue to function as a political tool that erodes the rights and livelihoods of both workers and adult consumers.

Michael McGrady covers the tech and legal sides of the online porn business.