FSC: ‘Censors Have Plans, But We Have Solutions’

Noting that last month, Oklahoma Senator Dusty Deevers “introduced a bill banning the production, distribution or possession of pornography in the state of Oklahoma, punishable by up to ten years in prison,” FSC observed that while the mainstream press “reacted with surprise, we did not.”

“Anti-porn activists and politicians have been preparing for this political moment for decades,” FSC asserted.

“Deevers’ bill may be too extreme for even the Oklahoma legislature (a similar bill failed last year), but in moves both large and small, public and private, conservatives have been pushing restrictions that would accomplish their goals in other ways,” FSC added. “A federal proposal by Sen. Mike Lee, for instance, would effectively void all existing model releases. A bill in Tennessee would allow citizens to sue anyone they believed was sharing “obscene” content. A bill in Hawai’i would require adult content platforms and consumers to register with the state. And a bill to eliminate income taxes for all Mississippi residents except those involved in porn production has already passed the House.”

Taking aim at state-level age-verification bills that have proliferated around the country, FSC said that by “requiring that consumers risk their privacy — submitting government identification, biometric information or undergo a background check — they’ve effectively blocked access to legal adult sites across the country for millions of adults.”

“While the bills are designed to seem like common sense, their proponents have been quite explicit: they’re meant to force porn companies out of state, if not out of business,” FSC observed. “Russ Vought of Center for Renewing America, one of the chief architects of these bills, said they are meant to be a ‘back door’ to a full on ban. The American Principles Project, which has put forward age-verification bills in other states, has called on President Trump to use the laws to ‘take down the porn industry.’”

In the statement, FSC argued that “age-verification policy doesn’t have to be this way, and if these laws weren’t designed to attack the adult industry, perhaps it wouldn’t be.”

In the statement, FSC explained the organization believes device-based age verification is a better, more effective means of age-verification.

Noting that the mechanics of various device-based schemes vary, FSC said the “central premise is the same” in each proposal.

“The owner of a device would verify their age once, after which that device simply would communicate to a website whether or not the user is old enough to access the site,” FSC said. “Adult sites would be required to block anyone under 18, but would not be required to implement their own verification process.”

FSC also noted their organization isn’t the only one advocating for device-based age verification, pointing out that the “device-based approach was proposed by Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Anxious Generation, and has support from a diverse group of stakeholders that includes Meta, Pinterest, the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, the American Enterprise Institute, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, USC professor Ravi Iyer, and even Minnesota’s Attorney General.”

“No one in our industry wants minors on adult sites, and in an ideal world, parents would be using filters to block material that’s unsuitable for minors – a category that goes far beyond adult sites –just as many of us do in our own homes,” FSC concluded. “FSC is taking on the challenge to educate legislators and propose real solutions because if we don’t, we know the censors have plans of their own.”

If FSC can persuade the courts that performing age-verification via a device-based mechanism is less burdensome and more effective than the approach proscribed in current state age-verification laws, this could boost the organization’s chances of prevailing (or at least sustaining injunctions against enforcement) in cases like FSC v. Paxton, in which the U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral argument.

Representing the FSC and the other petitioners in the case, attorney Derek Shaffer noted that the district court hearing the case at trial “found that this law’s age verification provisions are wildly under-inclusive and unduly chilling,” adding that “at the same time, content filtering today affords at least one alternative that is both less restrictive and more efficacious.”

“Ashcroft teaches that a preliminary injunction should stand in precisely these circumstances,” Shaffer said.

You can read the full text of the FSC statement on the organization’s website.