Growing Number of States Require Age Verification for Online Porn Access

Over a third of the states in the U.S. either have required age verification for access to porn sites or are in various stages of passing such legislation. Thus far, one third of states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Virginia — have all enacted legislation to protect children from accessing pornographic websites.

The state legislatures of Arizona and Alaska are in the process of passing similar pieces of legislation, bringing the total of states currently or soon to be requiring age verification for porn sites to 18. Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition from a pro-pornography organization to block Texas from enforcing its age verification laws.

“This effort to protect children from pornography is laudable and demonstrates the need for federal legislation requiring age verification,” said Family Research Council Senior Fellow Meg Kilgannon in comments to The Washington Stand. “Such legislation could build momentum for a total prohibition of pornography. We also need to demand more protective measures from device manufacturers to filter out this content. Parents can always do more, but help from the institutions we build and fund is long overdue.”

“Children have a right not to be assaulted by this content,” Kilgannon continued. “That porn producers masquerading as free speech advocates think only the adults performing sex acts need protection is frankly disgusting and depraved.”

Dani Pinter, senior legal counsel at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, told The Washington Stand, “It is crucial that states are moving in the direction of protecting children from pornography exposure by requiring pornography websites to verify their users are adults. Pornography can be extremely harmful to children, with negative impacts on the brain and relational development.”

She continued, “Some studies show that pornography exposure is a tool in grooming and those exposed are more vulnerable to assault and predatory acts. Online pornography sites like XVideos, XHamster, Pornhub, and OnlyFans have allowed filmed child sexual abuse, rape, sex trafficking, and other non-consensual explicit material on their websites — material that normalizes criminal activity.”

The largest pornographic website, PornHub, has outright shut down in many states which require age verification. Last year, shortly before Utah’s age verification law went into effect, PornHub’s parent company — then called MindGeek, now called Aylo — blocked access in Utah to PornHub and a number of other pornographic websites it owned. PornHub has also shut down in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. Now, when internet users visit the site, they are greeted by a message criticizing the states’ laws barring minors from accessing pornography.

PornHub and other pro-pornography organizations have filed multiple lawsuits against the age verification laws, alleging that they infringe upon rights to free speech. Responding to the Supreme Court’s refusal to block Texas’s law last month, a spokesperson for the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association representing pornographers, argued that allowing the Lone Star State’s law to go into effect “remains in direct opposition to decades of Supreme Court precedent,” further stating, “We will continue to fight for the right to access the internet without intrusive government oversight.”

Polling from RMG Research found that 83% of registered American voters support a national mandate requiring age verification for access to pornographic websites, including 58% who “strongly” support the move. A Common Sense Media survey released last year revealed that a lack of age verification laws impact and harm minors: 73% of current teens aged 13 to 17 said that they had been exposed to internet pornography by the age of 12, most of them through clicking on porn advertisement links.

Additionally, the survey found that 84% of pornographic content consumed by teens depicted violence, choking, bondage and sadism, or rape, and that two-thirds of teens who identify as LGBT reported that they “consumed pornography intentionally,” leading Common Sense Media to conclude, “Pornography may play a larger role in exploration for LGBTQ+ teens than for other teens.”