Oklahoma is latest state seeking to impose age-verification mandate for porn sites

A bill aimed at protecting children from online pornography is making its way through the state Legislature, and with it, Oklahoma has joined a fight being waged across the country over porn, free speech and safety for minors.

Senate Bill 1959, authored by Sen. Jerry Alvord, R-Wilson, would require online pornography sites to require age verification, allowing parents to block child access. The bill was recently approved by the Senate and it is currently being considered by the House.

Oklahoma legislators are weighing the merits of the bill in the wake of the adult website Pornhub's decision to disable its site in Texas due to a similar measure. According to USA Today, this week, Texas became the seventh state to pass some form of legislation, effectively blocking millions of adult video enthusiasts from entering Pornhub's site unless they can prove they are at least 18 years old.

SB 1959 has the support of an influential coalition of religion groups, including Oklahoma Southern Baptists and the state's Catholic faith community, which recently applauded Alvord for championing children's safety.

"SB1959 marks a significant step forward in safeguarding our youth by mandating age verification on online adult content platforms," the Rev. Paul Abner, director of Oklahoma Faith Leaders, said in a statement. "We’re grateful to all senators who voted in favor of this crucial measure, reaffirming our dedication to shielding our most precious resource — our children — from online harm."

But opponents of the Texas law and similar measures like SB 1959 point to Pornhub's decision as an example of how such legislation ultimately violates adults' free speech and amounts to unnecessary government interference into citizens' lives.

More: Millions blocked from porn sites as free speech, child safety debate rages across US

Mike Stabile, director of public affairs for the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association for the adult entertainment industry based in the U.S., said adult websites already have free, easy-to-use age-verification tools that allow parents to block children's access in as little as 30 seconds. He said his organization opposes legislation that requires adults to upload identification like a driver's license to verify their age because the data could put citizens at risk for identity theft, among other things.

"We don't want minors accessing our sites any more than parents do," Stabile said. "We want parents to be able to access those sites without risking government surveillance."

He said conservatives backing the Texas law and others like it "amounts to an old-school morality campaign."

"I think that what we found in other states that have passed this is that ultimately, it's not about protecting kids. Ultimately, what they say is, 'We don't want anybody accessing these sites.' ... There's a lot of complexities to this, but I think that it does boil down to this effectively is censorship by another name," Stabile said.

'Not new technology'

SB 1959 would require adult entertainment sites to use "reasonable age verification methods" to verify that a person seeking access to material available on the site is 18 or older by using the following methods: a digitized identification card; verification through an independent, third-party age verification service that compares the individual's personal information to information from a commercially available database, or aggregate of databases, that is regularly used by government agencies and businesses for the purpose of age and identity verification. The adult entertainment sites may also verify age via any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of the person attempting to access the material.

Alvord said the bill calls for the use of technology that is already used in online gaming, online tobacco sales and alcohol sales, "so it's not a new technology."

The senator said in addition to Texas, other states have passed similar measures, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

As for the the bill's opponents who claim adults' free speech rights are being violated, Alvord said the measure protects children without infringing on First Amendment protected speech.

"It's important that people understand the bill itself,"he said. "This approach basically allows parents an opt-out of allowing minors to access pornography, pornographic websites through their home network or cellular devices, and they can still opt in to adult access through age verification. So, this is protecting children without infringing on adults' First Amendment rights to free speech."

Meanwhile, the legislator said he was pleased to have the support of Oklahoma Faith Leaders. The coalition is made up of Oklahoma Baptists — the state's largest faith group ― along with the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, which includes the Archdiocese of Oklahoma and the Tulsa Diocese; Oklahoma Assemblies of God; Church of God Heartland District; New Horizons Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church; and the Northeast Oklahoma District of the Church of the Nazarene.

"Paul Abner and his team, and some of the others, were very, very supportive, very, very helpful with information in supporting me all the way through with this," Alvord said. "I really appreciate their concern with the morals and the values of our country, but our state, first and foremost. That's always a very important thing for me."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma looking to require age verification for porn sites