By Jason Hancock
Gov. Mike Kehoe has announced he will sign legislation Thursday requiring pornography websites to verify that users are adults before allowing them to access sexually explicit content.
The bill, which will take effect Aug. 28, applies to commercial websites and social media platforms that knowingly and intentionally publish or distribute content in Missouri if more than one-third is “sexual material harmful to minors.”
Covered sites would have to use a third party to conduct “reasonable” age verification, confirming that a user is at least 18 through digital identification, government-issued identification or a commercially reasonable system relying on public or private transactional data, such as records from mortgage, education or employment entities.
Third-party age verification providers would be barred from retaining identifying information about users.
The bill is designed to put into state law a policy Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has already begun enforcing through an administrative rule under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. That rule took effect in December and prompted Pornhub, the largest adult-content website, to block access in Missouri rather than implement site-level age checks.
New age verification rule causes Pornhub to shut down access in Missouri
“This is the source. Children do not need to view pornography,” state Rep. Sherri Gallick, a Belton Republican who carried the bill, told The Independent in May.
Gallick argued that easy access to online pornography distorts minors’ understanding of sex and relationships and can be used by predators to groom children.
“One of the things that was really compelling to me is that a lot of people growing up in today’s age look at a phone or they look at a computer, and they think that is reality,” Gallick said. “It’s very demeaning to women and to children.”
Under the bill, the attorney general could sue commercial entities accused of knowingly violating the law. Courts could impose civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each day a website operates without the required age checks and $10,000 per violation if an age-verification provider retains identifying information.
If at least one minor accesses sexual material harmful to minors because a covered website failed to comply, the court could impose an additional penalty of up to $250,000.
The measure passed the Senate 32-0 in May before returning to the House, where it won final approval on a 112-25 vote. Twenty Democrats and five Republicans voted against it, while 11 Democrats voted “present.”
Supporters say the law is needed to make it harder for minors to encounter explicit material online. Opponents questioned whether the requirement would work, warning that teenagers could bypass age checks through virtual private networks and that privacy concerns could push major adult sites out of Missouri while driving traffic to less regulated websites.
“Kids are smart,” state Rep. Eric Woods, a Kansas City Democrat, said during House debate in March. “There are VPNs. There are browser settings that allow you to skirt around some of this stuff.”
The legislation advanced after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar Texas law last year. In a 6-3 decision issued last year, the court ruled Texas could require pornographic websites to verify users’ ages, saying the state had an important interest in shielding minors from sexually explicit content.
Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.
4 comments:
An unenforceable law to strip privacy rights away under the guise of protecting children.
5:57 exactly. Nothing to stop kids from putting in false dates of birth, if they want on an adult site.
People are so dumb! Do you two - 5:57AM, 6:02PM, think you can't be caught! Every time you go on the internet, you are being tracked, by your carrier-ISP's, search engines, websites, advertisers, companies, on public or private networks, on wifi, or by the government, etc., your individual IP address, can be pinpointed and any authority can track you - right to your physical address. How do you think they track down criminals or search for missing individuals last location - today your phone, computer, or other electronic devices, even your cars are a direct source to tracking you, who you call, message, lookup, what you look at, what you watch, where you go, and what you buy, a complete history - and thanks to the Social Media Companies - Meta, X, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, YouTube, Alphabet, Amazon, eBay, Etc., and thousands of others they all have built Databases on you - with your likes and preferences - which you all allow them to do - so keep up the good work - and always remember, someone is always watching you, tracking you, you are not alone - and no where you go on your phone, computer, or electronic device is private - today you have no privacy!
Plus, to further educate you - who do you think invented the Internet - the U.S. government—specifically the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA)—invented the foundational technology behind the internet in the late 1960s and who regulates the Internet today - take a guess?
12:18 has never heard of VPNs, proxys, or Tor. And no, my 1988 pickup isn't tracking me.
If 12:18 was accurate, it's obvious there would be a lot more criminals(of varying degrees) being locked up.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going go check on my torrentbox where I steal TV shows, movies, music, and games, all without being tracked.
Lastly, who regulates the internet? Not the US government, but that's a story you should read up on yourself, you know, for further education.
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