Until now, parents had very limited resources at their disposal to prevent their children from accessing and becoming addicted to online porn. But apparently some lawmakers are taking notice. Todd Gathje of the Family Foundation of Virginia tells AFN his state's legislators passed a helpful law dubbed "the porn passport" that took effect on July 1.
"As you know many of these [porn] sites do not require or at least provide very minimal means of verifying ages here in Virginia," he explains. "So, now a person who wishes to view sexually explicit material online has to provide some type of age verification – an ID, a license; some type of government-provided ID."
Virginia's new law (SB 1515) "has teeth," stating:
"[The bill] creates a civil cause of action for any commercial entity that knowingly or intentionally publishes or distributes on the Internet material harmful to minors, as defined in the bill, and that does not take reasonable steps to verify that the age of a person attempting to access such material harmful to minors is 18 years or age or older."
One of the largest global porn web portals (Pornhub) has already pulled its service out of Virginia as it did in other states (e.g., Utah, Mississippi, and Louisiana) that have adopted similar laws requiring age verification.
Age verification is an advantage modern technology (such as smartphones) provides, which is the means through which many youngsters are accessing porn.
"It's even more accessible to them [via current technology]," notes Gathje. "It is so critical that we have in place a means by which we can protect them from these companies that really are seeking to go after them and trap them in this hyper-sexualized culture that we're seeing around the country."
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed SB 1515 in mid-May despite being heavily lobbied by the Free Speech Coalition, which argued that all age-verification mandates are "blatantly unconstitutional." The governor's office, however, said Youngkin "remains committed to protecting Virginia's children from dangerous material on the internet."
