A collective of adult entertainers, sex advice columnists and everyday internet users Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit to block state legislation requiring age verifications for certain websites, including pornography sites.
Plaintiffs argue the new laws violate free speech rights and property laws and place a huge burden on content creators, who are being tasked with gatekeeping their own material instead of leaving it up to parents of minors.
“These laws give the state the power to harass and censor legal businesses,” says Alison Boden, executive director of Free Speech Coalition, a plaintiff organization composed of people in the adult entertainment industry. “We, of course, support keeping minors from accessing adult content, but allowing the state to suppress certain speech by requiring invasive and burdensome systems that consumers refuse to engage with is simply state censorship.”
Additional plaintiffs include an online platform specializing in sexual wellness called Deep Connection Technologies, a sex advice columnist in Seattle and a Slidell military veteran who watches pornography while her husband is deployed.
Defendants named in the suit are Attorney General Jeff Landry, Safety and Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc and Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne.
The Louisiana law being challenged breezed through the legislature, ostensibly to shield children under 18 from accessing pornography and other “harmful materials” online. It requires popular sites like Pornhub to keep track of users ages by requiring them to upload their state-issued identification, though tech-savvy users of all ages have already found multiple ways to get around it.
The law was boosted when legislators additionally voted to allow the state attorney general to decide what is considered “harmful material” online and punish content creators with huge fines if their age verification process is flawed or non-existent.
Plaintiff attorneys say that not only is the legislation “murky” and open-ended, but it’s also unconstitutional.
“The statute is incredibly vague,” plaintiff attorney Jeff Sandman told Gambit. “There are terms of ‘art’ in here that are undefined. A trained attorney can’t make heads or tails of this.”
Sandman also says the definition of “harmful material” is broad and fluid, and that kids’ internet access should be decided on by parents, not the government.
Under the whim of a far-right attorney general like Jeff Landry, the law if upheld could prevent teenagers from learning about their own adolescence and accessing sex education materials, and punish experts who share scientific knowledge about those topics online.
Furthermore, plaintiffs say it violates the free speech rights of adults who simply want to watch porn on their own accord, and they shouldn’t be required to share personal information that can easily be hacked or subject to a data breach like the one Louisiana experienced over the weekend.
““There’s a chill from the perspective of adults who want to see content without the government looking over their shoulder,” Sandman says.
Louisiana is the second state being taken to federal court over this type of law.
Plaintiffs have also sued the state of Utah over similar mandates. They also plan to litigate in other states like Mississippi and Texas which have passed copycat laws.
“The government needs to regulate with great precision when they are regulating under the First Amendment,” Sandman says. “The government needs to articulate a compelling state interest and say how the statute is narrowly tailored to serve that. Protecting minors is a compelling interest, but there is nothing [in this legislation] approaching the narrow tailoring that courts demand.”