Pornhub Blocks Site Access in Texas Over Age Verification Dispute
- Written by Shipra Sanganeria Cybersecurity & Tech Writer
- Fact-Checked by
Texas residents can no longer access Pornhub or any porn site owned by Aylo Global Entertainment as of March 14.
In protest over HB 1181 , the state’s age verification bill, the adult entertainment company was forced to add Texas to its growing list of US states where visitors are prevented from accessing its pornographic online content.
Pornhub has already blocked access to its site in several US states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Utah, Montana, and North Carolina, due to similar age verification laws that were passed.
Although these laws have been mainly enacted to protect under-18 children from accessing adult content, various advocacy groups in the US and even the UK oppose online age checks due to serious privacy concerns.
Citing similar views, Pornhub calls this law “ineffective and dangerous.”
“Since age verification software requires users to hand over extremely sensitive information, it opens the door for the risk of data breaches,’’ Pornhub said in a blog on its website. “Whether or not your intentions are good, governments have historically struggled to secure this data. It also creates an opportunity for criminals to exploit and extort people through phishing attempts…’’
At first, Pornhub did comply with the law when it went into effect in Louisiana, where it ran age checks through the state-run LA Wallet app. However, after noticing an almost 80% drop in visitor traffic, the company decided to block user access in states requiring age verification for adult websites.
Citing safe online practices, Pornhub has instead advocated device-based age verification, placing the responsibility on operating system developers.
The company argues that having a centralized operating system age verification system will not only reduce privacy risk, but also simplify the process for regulators.
The entertainment site reassured content creators in these states that they can still use Pornhub with their creator accounts, as a user is required to verify their identity before uploading any content.
Microsoft Launches Copilot Pro for Everyone, Introduces New Features
- Written by Elijah Ugoh Cybersecurity & Tech Writer
- Fact-Checked by
Microsoft announced last week that it’s extending its AI-powered assistant, Copilot Pro, to 222 countries, making it available to way more people globally. This comes following its initial launch in January .
Copilot was introduced as “Bing Chat” in Feb 2023 and was meant as a replacement for the Cortana virtual assistant. The quick release of Microsoft’s Copilot brings the company up to par with competition like ChatGPT, which has been available since November 2022. Copilot comes with the latest Windows 11 update, Microsoft 365 subscriptions (Windows and Mac), and the Edge web browser with Bing.
Microsoft introduced Copilot in late 2023 as a replacement for Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise in Windows 11. It essentially merged these two products into one, called Microsoft Copilot. Originally only available to businesses, it was soon afterward made available to regular consumers .
Copilot Pro is included in Microsoft 365, offering additional features like generating entire PowerPoint slides from a simple chat prompt, rephrasing paragraphs in Word, summarizing documents, and replying to emails or creating new ones. Copilot Pro also appears in Excel for analyzing data and generating graphs.
Microsoft is also extending Copilot Pro capabilities to their free mobile apps in the coming months, including the Microsoft 365 app and Outlook for iOS and Android.
