State legislatures move to enact age verification for pornography sites

A number of
states
are considering legislation that would require
websites
with
pornographic content
to implement age-verification measures to ensure that such sites cannot be accessed by minors.

The efforts in Virginia, West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, and several other states would force pornographic websites to require users to verify their age through an ID check or some other means to ensure that minors are unable to access the websites.

In January, Louisiana became the first state in the country to require age verification for websites with a “substantial portion” of content that is pornographic. As a result, Pornhub and other pornography websites require Louisiana-based users to enter their government ID information to verify the user is at least 18 years old.

The Louisiana law, which was passed last year before taking effect last month, has spawned a flurry of copycat bills, with many garnering bipartisan support.

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In Virginia, the Democratic Party-controlled state Senate overwhelmingly passed an age-verification bill with broad bipartisan support. The measure is now under consideration in the state House of Delegates. Similar bills have already cleared legislative chambers in Mississippi and Arkansas.

But while the age-verification bills are garnering bipartisan support among state lawmakers, groups within the pornography industry have spoken out against such efforts.

The pro-pornography Free Speech Coalition has set up a tracker on its website to monitor states that have introduced age-verification bills. The group says it is also “strategizing responses with our First Amendment attorneys” for responding to the legislative efforts.

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“FSC has been meeting with legal counsel and allies in the civil/digital rights about potential challenges to the law(s),” the group says on its website. “We are speaking out in the press and on social media to raise awareness about the legislation and the potential issues. Currently, there are few voices raising concerns beside ours. We need to change that.”

In a statement to the Washington Examiner, the Free Speech Coalition said age-verification bills are “ineffective, a disaster for privacy, and blatantly unconstitutional.”

“No one in the adult industry wants minors on our sites. Within our own homes, we use device-level filters — our sites already register with databases such as RTA (
Restricted to Adults
) and are easily blocked by such filters — and other methods to keep adult content for adults,” the group said. “These are not only more effective, they don’t entail government surveillance of our browsing history or risk identity theft. If lawmakers want to know how to effectively keep minors from accessing adult content, while still preserving the rights of adults to access legal content, we’re more than happy to be part of that discussion.”