Have you ever clicked a box asking you if you’re 18 or over, and that was that? All anonymous honor systems, with zero verifiability. But what happens when that checkbox is truly all that stands between a child and pervasive pornographic material?
Accessibility of pornography has drastically changed from magazine pages behind a store clerk’s counter to today’s in-pocket, all-time access – and children are now victims. Their easy access to online pornography, intentional or accidental, is frighteningly unhindered. The damaging effects that children’s access to pornography has on individuals and society are real and growing.
Some states are ready to change that proactively, and the difference that age verification legislation makes is real.
What’s Working in Louisiana
Laurie Schlegel is a State Representative in Louisiana who has seen firsthand the terrible effects of pornography on young children. As a licensed professional counselor and a certified sex addiction therapist, she knows how deeply disturbing the effects of pornography can be on minors – especially when their access to online pornography is basically unrestricted.
Rep. Schlegel looked at the way online sports betting was able to exclude certain users from participating, and she knew that children could be protected from pornography through similar technology. They not only could be protected, but they deserved to be.
As a parent, legislator, and counselor, Rep. Schlegel went on to craft what many admire as “the first workable online pornography digital age verification law in the country,” according to the amicus brief regarding the progress of Louisiana’s House Bill 142. The law protects children under 18 from accessing pornography by requiring purveyors of pornography to provide actual online verification – it’s on the porn sites to provide more than a simple checkbox.
Why Age Verification is Worth Legislating
Rep. Schlegel has made a point to highlight why there is a compelling government interest in protecting children from the harms of pornography. From her brief, she notes that healthy, well-adjusted children “become healthy, well-adjusted adults… that build families and form the backbone of human society.” Access isn’t the only thing that has changed about pornography – the content itself has become more graphic and extreme, meaning the adverse effects are increasing as well.
Louisiana’s H.B. 142 has shown that the technology is available to actually verify a child’s age without burdensome difficulty. “Since the global pandemic, verification software allows individuals to board planes using retinas and open computers using fingerprints: why should minors not be protected by those same platforms from online pornography?” Rep. Schlagel’s brief explains.
Now, thanks to H.B. 142, PornHub and other major porn sites are required to verify the age of Louisiana residents before allowing them access to their site’s content.
According to PornHub’s website, Louisiana “now requires us to put in place a process for verifying the age of users who come to our site from Louisiana.” If you are connected to the VPN server in Louisiana, a visit to PornHub will only result in a landing page requiring users to verify their age with a driver’s license. Typically, the site requires no login or identification and would grant immediate access to video content, even to children.
This type of legislation can work. And now, more states need legislation that holds porn companies accountable and enforces the same level of verification effort.
States Seeking Safety: Other Successful Legislation
After the Louisiana law was passed in 2022, PornHub’s parent company announced that traffic on their site from that state dropped 80 percent. Louisiana is not alone in its efforts to protect children in their state from open access to porn. Utah, Texas, Montana, Arkansas, Virginia, and Indiana are among the others working to hold companies accountable and offer online protection to children in their states. Many other states are on track to pass similar legislation.
Age verification methods are no longer as invasive as they were in the past, and the technology used by Louisiana has proven to be accessible and verifiable. The privacy concerns that have come up in resistance to age verification laws were not lost on Louisiana in the development of H.B. 142. The law makes a point to penalize companies that collect or retain data during verification. Companies comply by verifying individuals’ ages; then, all data is erased.
How the National Decency Coalition is Helping
At the National Decency Coalition, we support state efforts to legislate age verification and prevent children from gaining open access to pervasive pornography. We have been working since 2016 to combat harm against children, and we know that partnering with legislative offices and state efforts will provide real, working solutions.
We have a list of states here that have passed similar legislation to Louisiana’s H.B. 142, as well as supporting materials and a way to contact us if you’re ready for our help to make this age verification a reality in your state. We know that age verification is a significant step that can help protect children from the dangers of pornography. We’re here to help states make that happen.