(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Pornhub blocks access by Montanans, citing bill to protect minors – Daily Montanan [1] ['Keila Szpaller', 'More From Author', '- December'] Date: 2023-12-30 An adult content website that’s blocking Montanans from pornography has Sen. Willis Curdy expecting a bill he sponsored will be challenged in court sooner or later. Curdy, a Missoula Democrat, said adjustments are part of the legislative process, and changes can be made, but his goal is clear. “The point is I just want to protect kids,” Curdy said. Senate Bill 544 restricts sites with more than one third of their content being “material harmful to minors on the internet” by requiring “reasonable age verification.” It defines harmful material as including sexual body parts and sex acts, along with content “designed to pander to the prurient interest.” In advance of its Jan. 1 effective date, Pornhub announced it is shutting out Montanans because of the age verification requirement, arguing it already has safety measures in place, as first reported by MTN News. Pornhub describes itself as “one of the most prolific adult websites” with more than 100 million daily visits and 36 billion annual visits. Its message blocking Montanans from access says the legislation mandates age verification but it does so without proper enforcement, making compliance voluntary. “To protect children and user privacy, any legislation must be enforced against all platforms offering adult content,” Pornhub said. The law in Montana says pornography is “creating a public health crisis” and is having a “corroding influence on minors,” including low self-esteem, a desire to engage in risky sexual behavior, and possible negative impacts on brain development. The bill also allows for penalties against commercial entities, holding them liable for damages that result from minors accessing harmful material. Age verification requirements are being litigated elsewhere in the country. The Free Speech Coalition, the nonprofit, nonpartisan trade association for the adult industry, is a lead plaintiff taking on such restrictions. On its website, it says it supports protecting young people from age-inappropriate or harmful material. However, it also notes related laws based on legislation first proposed in Louisiana — and currently being litigated — have practical, technical and legal problems that not only undermine the goal to protect children, they infringe on Constitutional rights. First of all, it’s easy to shield a user’s location by using a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, and the Free Speech Coalition noted 41% of youth ages 11 to 14 use a VPN to browse the internet. (The Daily Montanan used a VPN to bypass the message for Montanans from Pornhub and access information about the company for this story.) Additionally, among other arguments, the Free Speech Coalition said adult content, even if harmful to minors, is speech protected by the First Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled restrictions on producing or consuming it face the highest legal bar. Curdy said he isn’t interested in censorship, but he is interested in preventing children from access to pornography. He noted pop star Billie Eilish argued it causes harm based on her own experience as a pre-teen; she said one problem is porn distorts views around consent, according to the BBC. Curdy said the bill is a product of another piece of legislation, House Bill 340, which tried to require content blockers on electronic devices. He said the tech industry pushed back against that bill, which was tabled, but SB544 received bipartisan support. The Montana Legislature passed it 47-3 in the Senate and 84-13 in the House. “I’m not a big fan of censorship. I’m opposed to it,” Curdy said. “But we do restrict kids’ access to a number of things. So this is what the effort is.” Late last month in a separate case, a U.S. District judge in Montana granted a preliminary injunction on a law banning TikTok in the state, partly because it infringes on people’s constitutional rights. The judge found TikTok users could be deprived of communicating by their preferred means of speech, and its video compilations fell within First Amendment protections. TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, and in that case, the judge also found the law’s main purpose was to make a foreign affairs statement against China. Curdy, who taught high school in Missoula for 30 years, said he witnessed many of the things teens encountered, and he saw his bill as an opportunity to put the responsibility on porn sites to secure their content from minors. “And Pornhub’s response has been to just block everybody,” Curdy said. “They do not want to make the effort. It’s their copout.” The note from Pornhub says giving an ID card every time a person wants to visit an adult platform is “not the most effective solution for protecting users” and can put children and privacy at risk. It also says safety is one of its biggest concerns, and it posed a solution similar to the one in the bill that was tabled this year in Montana. “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,” the notice said. “Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Montana.” Age verification legislation has been adopted in eight states, and bills are being proposed in others for 2024, according to the Free Speech Coalition’s bill tracker. A lawyer with the organization declined to discuss any future potential litigation. Outside Montana, lawsuits on age verification are making their way through court systems with varying results. The Free Speech Coalition has sued on behalf of adult entertainers, erotica authors, sex educators and viewers, according to the Associated Press. It is challenging two statutes in Louisiana; one case is pending in district court, and the organization appealed another to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In late August, a federal judge struck down a Texas law requiring age verification, finding it violates free speech rights and is too vague, but the state attorney general’s office filed notice of appeal. Also in August, a federal judge dismissed a related case in Utah, although his order didn’t address First Amendment arguments, according to the Associated Press. The court docket notes the plaintiffs also filed an appeal. “States are attempting to do an end run around the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to citizens,” said Alison Boden, of the Free Speech Coalition, in the AP story. “It’s a new mechanism, but a deeply flawed one. Government attempts to chill speech, no matter the method, are prohibited by the Constitution and decades of legal precedent.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/12/30/pornhub-blocks-access-by-montanans-citing-bill-to-protect-minors/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/