The Censors Have Plans But We Have Solutions
In January, Oklahoma Senator Dusty Deevers introduced a bill banning the production, distribution or possession of pornography in the state of Oklahoma, punishable by up to ten years in prison. While the mainstream press reacted with surprise, we did not. Anti-porn activists and politicians have been preparing for this political moment for decades.
Deevers' bill may be too extreme for even the Oklahoma legislature (a similar bill failed last year), but in moves both large and small, public and private, conservatives have been pushing restrictions that would accomplish their goals in other ways. A federal proposal by Sen. Mike Lee, for instance, would effectively void all existing model releases. A bill in Tennessee would allow citizens to sue anyone they believed was sharing “obscene” content. A bill in Hawai’i would require adult content platforms and consumers to register with the state. And a bill to eliminate income taxes for all Mississippi residents except those involved in porn production has already passed the House.
The Truth About Age-Verification Legislation
Age-verification bills have been the most popular and most effective method of censorship in recent years. By requiring that consumers risk their privacy — submitting government identification, biometric information or undergo a background check — they’ve effectively blocked access to legal adult sites across the country for millions of adults.
While the bills are designed to seem like common sense, their proponents have been quite explicit: they’re meant to force porn companies out of state, if not out of business. Russ Vought of Center for Renewing America, one of the chief architects of these bills, said they are meant to be a “back door” to a full on ban. The American Principles Project, which has put forward age-verification bills in other states, has called on President Trump to use the laws to “take down the porn industry.”
And adult consumers are responding in kind. Approximately 95% of visitors to adult sites leave when asked to age-verify. They don’t stop accessing porn, of course. They just move from legal, compliant, adult sites to social media, non-compliant sites outside the US, or illegal pirate sites that don’t obey any US laws. Our members are faced with an untenable choice: age-verify and lose their existing consumers to pirate sites, or refuse and face crippling fines and litigation. Either choice is potentially business-ending.
A Better Solution
Age-verification policy doesn’t have to be this way, and if these laws weren’t designed to attack the adult industry, perhaps it wouldn’t be. Over the past several months, we’ve been leading the charge for better, more effective methods of age-verification — verification that happens on the device, not on the internet.
What does device-based age-verification policy look like in practice? While mechanics vary, the central premise is the same. The owner of a device would verify their age once, after which that device simply would communicate to a website whether or not the user is old enough to access the site. Adult sites would be required to block anyone under 18, but would not be required to implement their own verification process.
It’s not just us arguing this, of course. The device-based approach was proposed by Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Anxious Generation, and has support from a diverse group of stakeholders that includes Meta, Pinterest, the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, the American Enterprise Institute, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, USC professor Ravi Iyer, and even Minnesota’s Attorney General. But in many cases, we’re the ones on the front lines, actively working with legislators.
No one in our industry wants minors on adult sites, and in an ideal world, parents would be using filters to block material that’s unsuitable for minors — a category that goes far beyond adult sites — just as many of us do in our own homes. FSC is taking on the challenge to educate legislators and propose real solutions because if we don’t, we know the censors have plans of their own.
