Louisiana’s Great New Porn Law
"Great news from Louisiana" is not a phrase you hear often, but in this case, it is true, and very welcome:
Pornhub and other major porn sites owned by MindGeek now require Louisiana residents to verify their ages because of the state's new porn law that took effect on January 1, 2023.
"Louisiana law now requires us to put in place a process for verifying the age of users who connect to our site from Louisiana. The privacy and security of the Pornhub community is our priority, and we thank you for your cooperation," the Pornhub website tells Louisiana-based users when they try to access the website.
Pornhub owner MindGeek also operates Brazzers, YouPorn, and Redtube. All of those MindGeek sites now prompt Louisiana-based users to verify their age. Websites that violate the new state law could be found liable in civil lawsuits.
A criminal defense lawyer who goes by the name "Public Defendering" on Twitter pointed out the new Pornhub verification process in a widely shared tweet yesterday. "Hello from the surveillance state of Louisiana. People in Louisiana have to use their driver's license to go to Pornhub. This is truly wild," the tweet said.
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The law applies to websites where at least one-third of the "total material... meets the definition of 'material harmful to minors' as defined by this Section." Material harmful to minors is broadly defined in the law to include anything that's generally considered pornography.
Companies that violate the law can be sued by individuals "for damages resulting from a minor's accessing the material." The law includes language to prevent news organizations and Internet service providers from being held liable.
Fantastic! The law was authored by a Republican and signed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. It should be a model for states all across the country -- a commonsense measure that is long overdue. Of course there will be ways to get around it, but anything that makes the job of these evil people, the porn providers, more difficult is to be celebrated. This is the kind of thing that should be an easy sell to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, all over the country. Let's see more of it. For once, Louisiana leads the way in something good for America.
No wonder you characterized Edward Snowden as merely being in legal trouble and independent journalist Greenwald as being in trouble with Brazilian authorities. Hey, Assange, too, right? :-)
To return to the matter actually at hand here, do you or do you not support Louisiana's attempt to impose age limits on porn access just as we do with alcohol and tobacco? You're the last person here I'd expect to be pro minors-on-porn-sites.
“Anything that makes the job of evil people more difficult is to be celebrated,” can also be a rather dangerous principle.
Contrarily, the introduction of government surveillance reporting of perverse indulgences won't stop the underlying impulses but rather ratify them. Notice Pornhub has realized this. Adult porn is now explicitly government approved.