Age Verification Laws Pop Up For Accessing Adult Content
Earlier this year, Louisiana passed a new age verification law that would force companies that host “adult content” to check users’ ages against a driver’s license or other form of government identification. More than half a dozen mostly conservative states have followed Louisiana’s lead.
The laws are ostensibly intended to ensure minors can’t access pornographic material but opponents to the legislation like the Free Speech Coalition argue the bills are ineffective, unnecessary, and a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Worse still, privacy activists warn the legislation could unintentionally lead to firms gobbling up reams of private identification data that could be exposed to vulnerabilities.
Pornhub, one of the largest websites impacted by these laws, has begun to fight back. In early July, the porn megasite announced it would pull out of Mississippi and Virginia entirely in order to avoid complying with the states’ age verification laws.
