New porn checks for children in Louisiana

Porn sites face being sued if they fail to introduce age-verification checks in the US state of Louisiana.

The new law requires ‘adult websites’ that contain a “substantial proportion” of content deemed “harmful to minors” to verify the age of users.

In the UK, The Christian Institute has been among those calling on the Government to do more to protect children from pornography under its Online Safety Bill, which is currently before Parliament.

Accountability

Louisiana house representative Laurie Schlegel, who introduced the Bill, said: “Pornography is destroying our children and they’re getting unlimited access to it on the internet”.

Explaining her reason for bringing forward the legislation, she said: “if the pornography companies aren’t going to be responsible, I thought we need to go ahead and hold them accountable”.

Pornography is destroying our children

Schlegel said that under the law, someone could now “sue on behalf of their child; they can sue if children are getting access to pornography”.

One major porn site is now reportedly directing individuals trying to access its material to a page that requires identity verification.

Online Safety Bill

In 2017, the UK Parliament passed a law to force porn sites to age verify their users and those provisions were never implemented.

In November 2022, the Institute’s Simon Calvert called it “a major missed opportunity that could have protected hundreds of thousands of children over the last five years”.