Photo: LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty Images
Due to the fact that several US legislators consider pornography to be a public health crisis, certain measures are already being implemented in some states of the country to prevent the problem from ending up dragging minors.
In the case of Louisiana, as of the first day of this year a new law went into effect Written by Rep. Laurie Schlegel, which makes it illegal for pornographic sites to publish or distribute content considered “harmful to minors” without installing an age verification mechanism.
In the same way that the representative advocated for legislation that would prohibit transgender adolescents from participating in school sports according to their gender identity, now she focused on the law, known as Law 440, becoming the resource through which pornographic sites can be sued for damages caused to minors under 18 who access content that is harmful to their mind.
This law had bipartisan support and passed almost unanimously in both the House & Senate with close to 50 co-authors, including Democrats and Republicans. It was not a Republican win but a win for children in Louisiana. This bill is about protecting children not limiting adults. https://t.co/unrBiTQlZF
— Rep. Laurie Schlegel (@RepSchlegel) January 4, 2023
It should be noted that in Said law considers inappropriate content for minors to be material that represents sexual acts or nudity lacking “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”
Under this approach, Pornhub and other sites now require Louisiana users who wish to view pornography to prove their age through a third-party identity verification platform, where they will be required to present their driver’s license or valid government-issued identification, otherwise the possibility of navigating will be denied to them.
So far, Pornhub is the only site where, in order to have access to inappropriate content for minors, you must first go through an age verification process through the LA Wallet application, a digital wallet where all Louisiana driver’s licenses are concentrated.
Law 440 applies to any commercial entity that publishes or distributes said material on the Internet from a website, where at least 33.3% of what it offers is classified as pornography.
Given that the penalties derived from a lawsuit for the violation of Law 440 can be quite high, legislators hope that pornography sites begin to close the door of access to those under 18 years of age.
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