Age Verification in USA

US Senator Mike Lee, R-UT, has reintroduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would make it federal law for all adult websites to verify their users' ages.

The bizarrely titled Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act would require all pornography and adult entertainment websites with users in the United States to deploy reasonable age verification methods from third-party providers.

Supporters of the bill include software company Envoc, which provides ID verification software and anti-porn groups, such as the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, National Decency Coalition, Enough Is Enough, and Culture Reframed.

House Representative Mary Miller, R-Ill., introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives.

The SCREEN Act requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforce elements of the bill that would require a porn site, like Pornhub, xHamster, and Xvideos, to verify ages. FTC is also required to conduct regular audits of the parent companies affected by the act to ensure compliance and to promulgate rules based on the statutes of the bill if it were to become law.

The SCREEN Act competes with the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). This requires an expansive overhaul of trust and safety protocols for web platforms. If adopted into law, KOSA would require Congress to coordinate with the executive branch, namely the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to review the benefits and shortcomings of nationwide age verification requirements for websites.

Alabama lawmakers have proposed a bill for the upcoming legislative session that would block pornographic sites from anyone under 18 years old.

Representative Ben Robbins plans to sponsor a bill that will require someone to verify their age using a photo ID in order to access sites that offer pornographic material.

His bill will aslo require companies to register with the state as adult content distributors. It will also create additional state taxes for items sold on pornographic websites, and tax memberships Alabamians purchase through a site. The money will be allocated for mental health services in the state.

Lastly, the bill will require distributors to have written consent from people who are posted on the site.

Ohio House Representative Steve Demetriou has introduced an extraordinarily repressive House Bill (HB) 295. Dubbed the Innocence Actwould implement an age verification requirement similar to what has already been implemented in other states. However this bill goes way beyond other is that it introduces criminal penalties for websites that don't comply and misdemeanor penalties for any internet user who tries to circumvent age verification, eg by using VPNs.

In its current form, companies and webmasters who don't implement reasonable age verification methods could be subject to criminal charges -- a third-degree felony. No other proposed and implemented age verification regulation in the country has such punitive criminal penalties.

Corey Silverstein, a First Amendment attorney, commented:

VPNs are available on most mobile devices through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. They are also free or relatively inexpensive. And, to think that a 17-year-old high school student can't learn about and effectively deploy a VPN is short-sighted. I can't think of a worse idea than charging minors with criminal offenses for viewing adult content and potentially ruining their futures. Attempting to shame and embarrass minors for viewing adult-themed content goes so far beyond common sense that it begs the question of whether the supporters of this bill gave it any thought at all.

It is not yet clear if the bill has a chance of becoming law.

The North Carolina Senate has voted unanimously to mandate age verification on adult websites, after a Republican senator snuck a copycat amendment mirroring other states' requirements into an unrelated bill.

Senator Amy Galey added the requirement to House Bill 8, a previously unrelated measure that would add a computer science class to the state's high school graduation requirements.

Galey justified her amendment by saying the measure was needed to protect children, citing the seven other states that have passed similar laws and noting with satisfaction that overall traffic to adult websites in Louisiana dropped 80% after that state's age verification law passed.

North Carolina's HB 8 is now headed back to the state's House of Representatives for further debate.

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an administrative stay on the preliminary injunction blocking Texas House Bill 1181 from entering into force. This means that the law requiring age verification for internet porn is now in effect, at least until a full hearing challenging the internet censorship law as unconstitutional.

House Bill (HB) 1181 is a controversial law requiring an age verification regimen for all adult websites that have users from Texas IP addresses. The law was challenged in a federal district court last month due to a measure in the bill that would require adult websites to additionally post health warning labels at the top and bottom of web pages and on marketing collateral.

The Free Speech Coalition, the parent companies of the largest adult tube sites in the world, and pay-sites affiliated with these platforms sued the state of Texas , arguing that HB 1181 is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment.

They argued that a government cannot require a privately owned website to issue a public health warning when the claims in the warnings are not accepted by mainstream medicine, psychology and neuroscience.

Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra agreed with the plaintiffs and issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking Texas from enforcing the law. but it was this decision that was overturned in this appeal.

A federal judge has granted a request to block the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), a law that requires special data safeguards for underage users online.

The law is based upon a bizarre UK censorship policy seemingly intended to age gate much of the internet. The idea is to verify that users are old enough to understand the consequences of sharing personal data. But of course users are expected to hand over loads of personal date to prove that they are old enough to understand the dangers of handing over loads of personal data.

In a ruling, Judge Beth Freeman granted a preliminary injunction for tech industry group NetChoice, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment. It's the latest of several state-level internet regulations to be blocked while a lawsuit against them proceeds, including some that are likely bound for the Supreme Court .

The CAADCA is meant to expand on existing laws -- like the federal COPPA framework -- that govern how sites can collect data from children. But Judge Freeman objected to several of its provisions, saying they would unlawfully target legal speech. Although the stated purpose of the Act -- protecting children when they are online -- clearly is important, NetChoice has shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its argument that the provisions of the CAADCA intended to achieve that purpose do not pass constitutional muster, wrote Freeman.

Hours before controversial internet censorship laws were set to take effect in Texas and Arkansas, two federal judges granted preliminary injunctions temporarily blocking them.

The more narrow Texas law sought to restrict minors from accessing content that is meant for adults. The law in particular required age/ID verification to access porn websites. It was opposed by free speech groups and adult performer industry groups.

The Arkansas law, known as the Social Media Safety Act, is broader and would prevent minors from creating accounts without parental permission on platforms earning more than $100 million a year. The tech industry trade group NetChoice, which represents Google, Meta and TikTok, among others, sued in June to block the law on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and would place an onerous burden on digital platforms.

In Arkansas, U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks sided with NetChoice , saying that the law is not targeted to address the harms it has identified, and further research is necessary before the State may begin to construct a regulation that is narrowly tailored to address the harms that minors face due to prolonged use of certain social media. Brooks added that age--gating social media platforms does not seem to be an effective approach when, in reality, it is the content on particular platforms that is driving the State's true concerns.

The more narrow Texas law seeking to stop minors from accessing adult content online was temporarily blocked Thursday by District Judge David Alan Ezra in a move that the Free Speech Coalition said in a press release will protect citizens from facing a chilling effect on legally-protected speech.

The temporary injunctions block the laws from taking effect until further adjudication. It is unclear whether both Arkansas and Texas intend to appeal.

Arkansas recently passed the Social Media Safety Act , which requires every person to verify their age before they can access existing social media accounts or create new ones. If a user cannot show they are at least 18 years old using a commercially reasonable age verification method -- potentially including biometric screening or requiring government-issued ID -- the law requires them to obtain parental consent to use social media.

If allowed to go into effect, the Arkansas law would prohibit users from accessing social media anonymously or under a pen name. Age verification requirements can deter even adults from engaging on social media because they worry about sharing additional personal data with social media companies, which could misuse the information or get hacked. And those who don't have government-issued identification -- undocumented immigrants, for example -- might be unable to access social media at all. Additionally, the parental consent requirement violates kids' rights to speak and receive information as well as adults' right to hear what they have to say.

The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the law saying:

We urge the Western District of Arkansas to protect adults' and kids' right to access social media. We all have the right to speak and read about everything from upcoming protests to violin tips to challenging Arkansas' law.

Meanwhile Pornhab as responded to the new law by blocking all access from IP addresses associated with Arkansas.

The Arkansas law, SB 66, doesn't ban Pornhub from operating in the state, but it requires porn sites to verify that a user is 18 by confirming their age with identifying documents. Pornhub blocked all traffic from IP addresses based in Arkansas in protest, arguing that the law, which was intended to protect children, actually harms users. The blocked website currently just displays a message explaining the actions:

While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.

One of the most visited sites in the world, Pornhub, has blocked users in Virginia over the state's new age verification law.

The new law taking effect July 1 now requires websites with pornographic content being viewed in Virginia to verify that users are at least 18 years old before they can view the site. The law, proposed by Republican state Sen. William M. Stanley Jr. (Franklin), sailed through the Virginia General Assembly.

Pornhub decided that it would be blocking all Virginia users rather than try to implement unsafe and privacy endangering age verification.

Pornhub wrote in a message to those attempting to log in:

The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification.

Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Virginia.'

 

 

Virginia is the next jurisdiction in the United States to implement a law that requires all adult entertainment websites to have age verification measures in place or face civil action. Similar to age verification laws implemented in states like Utah and Louisiana, Senate Bill (SB) 1515 was adopted with virtually universal support from lawmakers in both of the state's major political parties. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed SB 1515 into law at the behest of parental rights groups and organizations that believe that age verification mandates are the best way to prevent minors from viewing age-restricted content, like pornographic sites.

Industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) has filed suit in federal district courts in both Utah and Louisiana seeking to render the age verification laws in those states unconstitutional on the grounds of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. FSC director of public affairs Mike Stabile characterized the law in Virginia as dangerous and and said the organization has reached out to Gov. Youngkin with little results.

The Virginia law suffers from the same technological and constitutional problems as the laws in Utah and Louisiana, Stabile told AVN in an email:

Adult consumers shouldn't have to risk surveillance or secure government approval in order to view legal content in the privacy of their own home.

We are looking at potential suits in every state that has passed this law, including Virginia.

Adult industry attorney Corey Silverstein told AVN that the new Virgina law is foolish.

Virginia's law, much like Louisiana, Utah, and others are not going to survive First Amendment challenges. While these politicians are patting themselves on the back for pushing through these blatant speech suppression tools, they seem to have forgotten about the First Amendment that they swore to protect when they took office.

Virginia's age verification law goes into effect on July 1, 2023.

Adult industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) has announced that it has filed a lawsuit in Louisiana challenging the law that went into effect there January 1 of this year requiring age-verification to access online adult content.

Free Speech Coalition, the advocacy organization for the adult industry, has filed a legal challenge in Louisiana over the state's unconstitutional age-verification law. The Louisiana law gives the state the power to fine sites with adult content up to $5,000 per day, a direct violation of the First Amendment. FSC filed a similar suit against the state of Utah in May.

Joining Free Speech Coalition in filing the challenge are Elizabeth Hanson, a military veteran and spouse of an active-duty Coast Guard member residing in Slidell; Andrea Barrica, founder of the sex education site O.school; journalist, educator, and content creator Charyn Ryn Pfeuffer; and fan platform JustFor.Fans. The parties are represented by Jeffrey Sandman of Webb Daniel Friedlander LLP and D. Gill Sperlein of the Law Office of D. Gill Sperlein.

These laws give the state the power to harass and censor legal businesses, says Alison Boden, Executive Director of Free Speech Coalition. We, of course, support keeping minors from accessing adult content, but allowing the state to suppress certain speech by requiring invasive and burdensome systems that consumers refuse to engage with is simply state censorship.

Seven states have passed laws requiring sites with substantial amounts of material harmful to minors to check users' government ID or other age and identity verification information in order to access content. But consumers have been reluctant to do so, with more than 90% of users abandoning sites that comply with such laws.

Last year, Louisiana passed a law allowing for a private right of action against adult sites without such age-verification for consumers, and other states followed suit. In June, Governor John Bel Edwards signed a new law giving the government the power to fine sites directly, as much as $1M per year.

The First Amendment protects our right to freely access legal content and ideas without government interference, says Jeff Sandman, a New Orleans-based counsel for the Free Speech Coalition. We're fighting not only for adult businesses but for the right of legal adults to use the internet without government surveillance. Showing your ID in a checkout lane is simply not the same as submitting it to a government database.

For decades, our industry has voluntarily and enthusiastically worked with filters that allow parents and others to easily block adult sites, says Boden. Those who wish to can do so easily, and the Supreme Court has ruled that this is preferable to government-mandated censorship. We are again asking the courts to reject these unreasonable and dangerous restrictions on a free internet.

Texas is the latest American state to implement age verification rules for adult websites. The new law HB 1181 -- spearheaded by Republicans but enthusiastically supported by Democrats, creates a new criminal liability for any website when more than one-third of its content is sexual material harmful to minors unless the site uses reasonable age verification methods to verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older. How reasonable those methods might have to be and what defines harm remain two vague aspects of the new legislation. But it doesn't stop there.

In addition any adult website now operating or available in Texas will now have to feature one of the following statements in 14pt or above on every landing page:

• Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses and weakens brain function.

• Exposure to this content is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.

• pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation and child pornography.

 

Offsite Comment: Brain Rotting In Texas

5th June 2023. article from reprobatepress.com

Sex, lies and bad science as Texas passes a law to restrict porn forcing adult websites to carry spurious health warnings.

Pornhub is fight back against Utah's new law requiring visitors to porn websites to verify their age by dangerously identifying themselves before being able to watch adult content..

Pornhub began totally blocking Utah-based internet connections' from access to its content when the law took effect May 3. The site redirects visitors to a video message of adult film actress Cherie DeVille explaining that the company disabled access over concerns that the law is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and in fact will put children, and your privacy, at risk.

The Free Speech Coalition, a group representing the adult entertainment industry, also sued to block the law's enforcement that same day, making a similar argument about the trade-off regarding safety, privacy, and adults' freedom to browse the web as they wish.

The group has also vowed to sue over unsafe age-verification measures set to take effect soon in other states.

Utah Republicans have introduced two ludicrous age verification bills that could have nationwide ramifications. State Rep. Jordan Teuscher and State Senator Michael McKelland introduced HB311 and SB152 respectively.

SB152 demands that beginning January 1, 2024, a social media company shall verify the age of all Utah resident wanting to use social media. If the platform determines that the person is a minor, defined by the bills as anyone under the age of 18, the proposed bill would require any social media company to give parents access to their kids' accounts.

State Sen. McKelland would like the minor's parent or guardian to be able to monitor all posts the Utah minor account holder makes under the social media platform account and all responses to those posts.

SB152 also demands that minors be prevented by the platform from accessing social media cannot between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.

Meanwhile HB 311 not only mandates age verification, but also forbids anyone under the age of 16 from having any social media accounts.

The US state of Louisiana has commenced a new law requiring porn websites to obtain identity/age verification before allow access to viewers. The law is not enforced by official censors. Instead it simply allows Louisiana to sue for damages for any harm claimed as a result of underage porn viewing. So how is it panning out in practice?

It is the second week of the new law. Vice has found that very few sites have actually implemented the age verification system. As it stands, only PornHub and OnlyFans check Louisiana's residents' ages, others don't.

This may have something to do with the way the age check is implemented: when you access PornHub from Louisiana, you're met with a screen asking you to verify your age. From there, you're redirected to AllPassTrust, a Cyprus-based company specialized in age verification. AllPassTrust links to LAWallet, the state of Louisiana's digital driver's license wallet, which provides you with a code that you need to enter on AllPassTrust.

The way it's looking now, only Louisiana drivers licenses are accepted for verification, which is a problem for anybody currently in the state that doesn't have one. Sure, practically everybody in the United States has a driver's license, but there are those who don't, and visitors or short-term residents of the state won't be able to verify their age since they won't have a license issued in Louisiana.

According to local Louisiana newspaper L'Observateur, opponents are already gearing up for a legal challenge.

The idea is spreading though. There are reports of national politicians proposing similar laws to Louisiana.

Also two Republican state senators in Arkansas introduced a bill this week requiring age verification before entering a website offering pornography. Senate Bill 66, which proposes a Protection of Minors from Distribution of Harmful Material Act, is sponsored by Sen. Tyler Dees and Sen. Jim Petty. The proposed legislation is a copycat version of Louisiana's new law.