US politicans and porn harms

The Republican governor of Utah has signed silly legislation requiring all cellphones and tablets sold in the conservative state to be sold with software that automatically blocks pornography.

Governor Spencer Cox claims the measure would send an important message about preventing children from accessing explicit online content.

In fact the legislation is mere virtue signalling and makes no meaningful proposals how its requirements can be implemented in practice. So there is a get out clause that says no immediate steps toward implementation will be made unless five other states enact similar laws, a provision introduced to address concerns that it would be difficult to implement.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah said the constitutionality of the bill was not adequately considered and that it will likely be argued in court.

The idea of adding censorship software to new phones and tablets sold in Utah has been well debated by moralists in various US state assemblies. But none are quite as silly as Utah when it comes to enacting stupid ideas without a moments thought for the practicality of the requirement.

Now the Utah House of Representatives passed an amended version of a controversial bill that would mandate a default porn filter on any phones, computers, tablets or any other electronic devices sold in the state starting in 2022.

HB 72 , sponsored by Representative Susan Pulsipher, a realtor with no technology experience, was speedily passed by the House only hours after it had cleared the committee stage by the narrowest of margins (a 6-5 vote), as XBIZ reported.

The bill was introduced into the Utah Senate yesterday, where it is co-sponsored by staunch anti-porn campaigner Wayne A. Harper.

Some porn websites are beginning to comply with a nonsense new Utah law requiring warning labels be attached to adult-oriented materials.

At least three major tube sites, Pornhub, XTube and RedTube, have begun attaching the opt-in notification for visitors, which states that Utah believes pornographic materials can be harmful if viewed by minors.

This trigger warning is a response to Utah state law sponsored by Utah House Representative Brady Brammer earlier this year. The bill started life as intending to restrict porn in the state but was watered down until it ended up as a trivial warning requirement.

Moralist campaigners in the US have been pushing for computers and smart phones to be pre-loaded before sale with unspecified porn blocking software that can only be removed once users pay an unblocking fee.

But the campaigners haven't really done much to specify how this idea could be implemented in practice. Now the proposal introduced by representative Susan Pulsipher has run into a wall of dissent in the Utah legislature at an interim committee hearing, and the idea was rejected without a vote.

Pulsipher said the goal of her effort was to create another wall of defense to help protect children from the damaging impact of pornography and empower parents and legal guardians to limit a minor's exposure to such online harmful material.

But committee members balked at Pulsipher's approach, noting that it would be extremely difficult to identify which entity in the consumer electronics supply chain should be held liable for ensuring that software was activated.

Senator Curt Bramble, R-Provo, pointed out that Pulsipher's proposal failed to identify whether the responsible party was the manufacturer, the company that distributed the product, or the store or reseller that sold the product to the consumer.

Pulsipher said she appreciated the opportunity to field the concerns of committee members and promised to work on revising the bill in time for further consideration in the next interim session. But Senate Majority Whip Dan Hemmert said he was unlikely to end up a supporter of the effort, regardless of what changes Pulsipher came back with.

Utah was one of the first states to pass legilsation promoting a modern day morality message that porn harms public healthl. The state went on to pass a somewhat watered down bill requiring porn producers to add a warning to any porn films sold in the state.

Now Pornhub has responded to the new legislation by pre-fixing a warning to its porn films, at least for those reading from Utah. The websites also requires a tick box consent that a reader is over 18.

The Free Speech Coalition is trade group representing, amongst others, US porn producers. The group has just published its interpretation of Utah's recently passed anti pornography law that requires a warning label on products distributed in the state of Utah. The group writes:

In March, the State of Utah passed a law requiring anyone distributing obscene material in Utah to affix a warning label -- and, in the case of streaming video, a five-second pre-roll -- warning potential viewers of the dangers associated with showing such content to minors. Failure to do so can result in a $2500 fine (plus court costs and legal fees).

The law has caused a fair amount of confusion, both within the state and among adult producers. While we can not provide legal advice or specific guidance about any business' potential liability under the law, we hope we can provide some context for understanding the new law.

Some of the confusion comes from the previous versions of the bill. When the original bill was introduced in early February, the proposed law applied not just to obscene content, but to any representation of sexual activity. Thanks to the work of ACLU and objections raised by FSC, the law has now been significantly narrowed. Currently, the requirement to label content only applies to legally obscene material.

What Is Obscene?

While the word obscene is often used casually to describe any explicit material, for more than 50 years it's been a fairly narrow legal category.

Unfortunately, there is no clear definition for obscenity under US law204in order for a work to be declared obscene, a prosecutor must bring an obscenity case and secure an obscenity conviction. It is a very high standard to prove obscenity. There have been relatively few obscenity prosecutions in the last two decades, and even then for fairly extreme material.

Given this, it's unclear how the law can or will be applied to individual distributors or website owners. In theory, until a work is deemed obscene by a court, it would not be subject to the labeling requirements of this law. However, could the Attorney General bring a case regardless?204and assume most adult companies would rather pay a $2500 fine than fight a lengthy and costly First Amendment case, even if they would likely prevail? We don't yet know.

What Are The Requirements?

You should read the text of the bill for yourself here. In addition to the warning, you're required to insert code so that prosecutors can easily detect if you are using the warning.

Is This Constitutional?

FSC believes the warning is compelled speech'204essentially, the government forcing you to express a specific message204 omething the First Amendment protects against. However, until someone challenges the law in court, and wins, it remains the law.

Does It Apply to Companies Outside of Utah

Yes. Anyone with material publicly available on the web (or otherwise accessible to citizens of Utah) is subject to this law. You need not market or otherwise sell anything specifically to Utahns in order to be subject to it. (A previous lawsuit over a similar labeling law successfully challenged this point, but it does not automatically extend to this law.)

How Should My Business Proceed?

As with many new laws, your degree of compliance will depend on your tolerance for risk. Will the law actually be enforced, or was it merely a political stand? Is it constitutional? We can't answer those questions yet. Nor can we answer if the content hosted on your site is likely considered obscene in a court of law. For these questions, we can only recommend you speak with an attorney well-versed in First Amendment law.

A bill that requires porn producers to put a warning label on their products has gone into law without the governor's signature.

State governor Gary Herbert allowed House Bill 243 to take effect but opted not to sign it himself.

The bill was significantly watered down from its original version. It first required a label on every pornographic video and publication declaring it was harmful to minors. By the time the bill passed the Utah State Legislature, it was modified to only cover what is obscene.

That sets a different legal standard and requires someone to take an adult site, studio or publication to court to have something defined as legally obscene.

US porn producers are unlikely to add warning labels to their products and will challenge the constitutionality of the law if challenged,

A toned down version of a Utah bill requiring nonsense warning labels on pornography emerged from the Senate on Friday, one vote away from heading to the governor's desk.

Under the modified legislation, an adult content website would have to display a now shortened , one-sentence statement: Exposing minors to obscene material could damage or negatively impact them. Alternatively, the website could embed in its metadata the searchable text, utahobscenitywarning.

Those who violate the mandate could face fines of up to $2,500 per infraction. But pornography distributors wouldn't face repercussions for the occasional slip-up -- as long as they could prove they'd complied with the warning label mandate at least 75% of the time over the past six months.

The original bill did not include the metadata allowance and required a much lengthier denunciation of pornography that warned the material could impair brain and emotional development and cause low self-esteem and relationship problems if shown to minors.

The Legislation was passed 20 - 6 ans now heads to the House, which will consider the changes made in the Senate.

Update: Bill passed

10th March 2020. See article from xbiz.com

The bill has now passed both the Utah House and Senate.

The Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a US adult trade group, has released a statement regarding Utah HB243, which would require all adult content in the state to include a warning label:

The Utah legislature is attempting to pass a new law, HB243, that would require all obscene material distributed in the state to come with a five-second warning label stating that such material may damage or negatively impact minors. Anyone who does not comply can be sued by the Attorney General of Utah, for a penalty of $2500 per violation.

Despite changes to the bill, HB243 remains a land mine of First Amendment issues. Affixing a state-mandated warning to an adult film, which enjoys First Amendment protections, is fundamentally different from doing the same to a food product, which does not.

The bill's author, Rep. Brady Brammer, says that the labelling law will only apply to obscene content. However, there is no established legal definition for obscenity 204 each case would have to be worked out through a lengthy and expensive legal process. However, the chilling effect on legal speech would be substantial.

HB243 is remarkably similar to a 2005 Utah labeling bill, HB260, which was struck down in 2012 after a costly seven-year court battle. In the ensuing case, Florence v. Shetloff, a federal judge ruled that Utah could prosecute a person in communication with a specific minor, but could not prosecute generally accessible websites. We don't know why the State of Utah would want to waste precious time and taxpayer dollars fighting an already-decided battle.

FSC supports the limiting of adult content to adults. That's why we've worked closely with adult content filters to register adult content, and why adult sites carry the Restricted to Adults Label, which allows them to be easily blocked. If Rep. Brammer wants to limit access of adult content by minors, consumer filters are a much more effective solution 204 and one that doesn't trample First Amendment protections.

There's a public health crisis in the US at the moment spreading amongst lawmakers who become afflicted by the notion that porn is a public health crisis.

Arizona's Senate has become the latest victim of the crisis. It passed a resolution claiming that:

Pornography perpetuates a sexually toxic environment that damages all areas of our society.

The measure, which carries no legal weight, was introduced by Republican Rep. Michelle Udall and was approved by the state House in February. It cleared the Senate in a 16-13 vote on Monday.

Montana was the previous state to have passed a similar resolution and Texas is currently considering something similar.

This list of states passing resolutions about porn crises now reads:

• Arkansas
• Arizona
• Florida
• Idaho
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Missouri
• Montana
• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Utah
• Virginia

An Arizona legislator has proposed a one off $20 fee to access porn sites, with funds going to Donald Trump's border wall.

According to a report by The Arizona Republic, state rep Gail Griffin has introduced a new bill that would force internet users to cough up $20 just for the ability to access adult sites online. The money would go into a newly created account called the John McCain Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Fund, with the proceeds to be used for one of 10 things, and the top item on the list of 10 is: Build a border wall between Mexico and this state or fund border security .

A similar tax has been proposed in several other states but has not yet come to fruition. Lawmakers have not made it clear how the tax will actually be implemented but perhaps it would be along the line of ISPs blocking porn sites until the tax is paid.

Kentucky is joining the list of states that claim that porn is somehow a threat to public health.

A Kentucky lawmaker, state Senator David Givens, has introduced a resolution in his state that would recognize porn as a public health crisis.

So far, five states -- Florida, Utah, Kansas, Tennessee and Virginia -- have voted on passing such resolutions. And others, like Idaho, are considering to vote on such a proposal.

Resolution SR170 moves to recognize pornography as a public health crisis, acknowledge the need for education on the harmful effects of pornography, encourage prosecution of obscenity and exploitation offenses, and commend law enforcement efforts to fight Internet crimes against children.

A Florida lawmakers are sponsoring a bill in the state's legislature to officially declare porn a public health crisis. If the bill, House Resolution 157, passes, Florida would become the fourth state to classify adult entertainment as a threat to public health.

The resolution was introduced on the floor of the Florida state house this week.

Utah, South Dakota and Virginia have passed similar anti-porn resolutions. Though the bills create no new laws regulating porn, they could allow state governments to make policy changes and create prevention measures to alleviate what the lawmakers behind the measures claim is the imminent health dangers posed by porn.

As AVN.com reported earlier, those measures could include making deals with internet service providers to block online porn, once repeal of net neutrality rules takes effect sometime in 2018.

More than a dozen state legislatures are considering a bill called the " Human Trafficking Prevention Act ," which has nothing to do with human trafficking and all to do with one man's crusade against pornography at the expense of free speech.

At its heart, the model bill would require device manufacturers to pre-install "obscenity" filters on devices like cell phones, tablets, and computers. Consumers would be forced to pony up $20 per device in order to surf the Internet without state censorship. The legislation is not only technologically unworkable, it violates the First Amendment and significantly burdens consumers and businesses.

Perhaps more shocking is the bill's provenance. The driving force behind the legislation is a man named Mark Sevier, who has been using the alias "Chris Severe" to contact legislators. According to the Daily Beast , Sevier is a disbarred attorney who has sued major tech companies, blaming them for his pornography addiction, and sued states for the right to marry his laptop. Reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny uncovered a lengthy legal history for Sevier, including an open arrest warrant and stalking convictions, as well as evidence that Sevier misrepresented his own experience working with anti-trafficking non-profits.

The bill has been introduced in some form Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming. We recommend that any legislator who has to consider this bill read the Daily Beast's investigation.

But that's not why they should vote against the Human Trafficking Prevention Act. They should kill this legislation because it's just plain, awful policy. Obviously, each version of the legislation varies, but here is the general gist.

Read EFF's opposition letter against H.3003, South Carolina's iteration of the Human Trafficking Prevention Act.

Pre-installed Filters

Manufacturers of Internet-connected devices would have to pre-install filters to block pornography, including "revenge porn." Companies would also have to ensure that all child pornography, "revenge pornography," and "any hub that facilitates prostitution" are rendered inaccessible. Most iterations of the bill require this filtering technology to be turned on and locked in the on position, by default.

This is terrible for consumer choice because it forces people to purchase a software product they don't necessarily want. It's also terrible for free speech because it restrains what you can see. Because of the risk of legal liability, companies are more likely to over-censor, blocking content by default rather than giving websites the benefit of the doubt. The proscriptions are also technologically unworkable: for example, an algorithm can hardly determine whether an item of pornography is "revenge" or consensual or whether a site is a hub for prostitution.

To be clear, unlocking such filters would not just be about accessing pornography. A user could be seeking to improve the performance of their computer by deleting unnecessary software. A parent may want to install premium child safety software, which may not play well with the default software. And, of course, many users will simply want to freely surf the Internet without repeatedly being denied access to sites mistakenly swept up in the censorship net.

A Censorship Tax

The model bills would require consumers to pay a $20 fee to unlock each of their devices to exercise their First Amendment rights to look at legal content. Consumers could end up paying a small fortune to unlock their routers, smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.

Data Collection

Anyone who wants to unlock the filters on their devices would have to put their request in writing. Then they'd be required to show ID, be subjected to a "written warning regarding the potential dangers" of removing the obscenity filter, and then would have to sign a form acknowledging they were shown that warning. That means stores would be maintaining private records on everyone who wanted their "Human Trafficking" filters removed.

The Censorship Machine

The bill would force the companies we rely upon to ensure open access to the Internet to create a massive censorship apparatus that is easily abused.

Under the bill, tech companies would be required to operate call centers or online reporting centers to monitor complaints that a particular site isn't included in the filter or complaints that a site isn't being properly filtered. Not only that, but the bill specifically says they must "ensure that all child pornography and revenge pornography is inaccessible on the product" putting immense pressure on companies to aggressively and preemptively block websites to avoid legal liability out of fear of just one illegal or forbidden image making it past their filters. Social media sites would only be immune if they also create a reporting center and "remain reasonably proactive in removing reported obscene content."

It's unfortunate that the Human Trafficking Prevention Act has gained traction in so many states, but we're pleased to see that some, such as Wyoming, have already rejected it. Legislators should do the right thing: uphold the Constitution, protect consumers, and not use the problem of human trafficking as an excuse to promote this individual's agenda against pornography.

Following in the footsteps of Utah and South Dakota, Arkansas has become the third U.S. state to pass a resolution claiming that pornography is a public health crisis of epidemic proportions.

The resolution, which was passed unanimously last week, states that online porn is responsible for a host of social problems relating to sexuality and sexual violence. Representative Karilyn Brown, a sponsor of House Resolution 1042, whinged:

It is no longer just available in sleazy stores and distributed in brown paper bags.

The resolution claims that pornography proliferates abuse of women and children by depicting rape and abuse as if such acts are harmless, hyper-sexualization among youth, and a slew of other things related to so-called pornography.

All claims stated within the resolution, such as the idea that porn lessens the desire to marry and increases the demand for sex trafficking of young girls, are presented without sources.

The resolution does not have any specific or immediate impacts, it is intended for use by the state's Department of Health for education, prevention, and policy change at the community and societal levels.

Another similar resolution is now being considered in Tennessee.