PornSnub — Ohio lawmakers want to require ID to watch online pornography

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill to require age verification to watch pornographic material. This double-teaming by Republicans and Democrats is causing immediate backlash from Ohioans on each side of the political aisle since it would require all porn watchers to provide personal information — even a state ID — to view sexually explicit material.

One of the most lucrative industries in the world — sex. Pornography is a multibillion-dollar business.

"Everyone wants to say, 'Oh, I don’t watch porn,'" Clevelander Mallory McMaster said. "I mean, everyone does it. It's just a fact of life."

And there is content for whatever you’re into. As McMaster says, anonymity is a good thing.

But a new bill in the Ohio Senate would stop her from going on sexually explicit websites.

"No one is going to create a log of the porn that they watch that can someday be used against them, someday be used to blackmail them," she said.

In an effort to crack down on kids and teens accessing porn, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted have proposed legislation that would require every porn watcher to provide 18+ age verification.

The legislation was introduced by state Sens. Stephanie Kunze (R-Dublin) and Bill DeMora (D-Columbus). It is so new that it doesn't have a number assigned to it yet.

"Once it's passed and signed into law, will create penalties for failure to do the age verification component of that where you're basically trying to sell porn to kids — this will stop it," Husted said.

Verification would be done by submitting a photo of a state ID or by entering personal information into a third-party system that will then run private details through other online databases to evaluate age.

Companies would be penalized if they don't comply.

"This is applying the same rules for the digital world that we already have in the physical world," Husted added. "It is illegal in the physical world to market and sell adult products to kids and teenagers."

Viewers and watchers of News 5 reached out on social media to share their reactions to the legislation. Most on each side of the political spectrum were angry with the legislation.

"I'm not putting my ID on any of these sites! I’ll just use my imagination," wrote one user on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Most replies and quote-tweets commented on government overreach.

On the other side, one user put a bunch of clapping hands emojis and said, "Let's go Ohio!"

This type of legislation has already taken effect or is about to in a handful of other states, including Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.

PornHub is one of the largest porn providers in the country. Their spokesperson told News 5 that their traffic dropped 80% in Louisiana, and they believe they were one of the only companies following the law.

“Users just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don't ask users to verify age, that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content,” their parent company Aylo said, in part, in a statement.

Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau asked Husted if this law was Orwellian, referencing "1984," the dystopian novel about government control by George Orwell where society members were monitored at all times.

"If you are not interested in selling porn to kids and monetizing it, then you shouldn't have a problem with this," Husted responded. "It's not very Orwellian — it's protecting kids from things we know harm them, that's called responsible citizenry."

McMaster is a mom and said that people can put parental blockers on certain websites, but even then — virtual private networks (VPNs) are easily accessible on smartphones to change the user's location.

There are bigger problems the state can be dealing with, she added.

"We didn't ask them to take porn away from us when we sent them to Columbus," she said. "We asked them to fix the economy. We asked them to produce results for health care."

There is also a House version of this bill, one that goes further. It would charge minors with a misdemeanor if they lie about their age to watch porn. When asked about adding this into the Senate versions, both sponsors said they aren't interested in that.

Both bills will likely be heard in the coming months.

PornHub's full response:

Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy, and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults.

Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.

This is not speculation. We have seen how this scenario plays out in the United States. In Louisiana last January, Pornhub was one of the few sites to comply with the new law. Since then, our traffic in Louisiana dropped approximately 80 percent. These people did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don't ask users to verify age, that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content. In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.

The only solution that makes the internet safer, preserves user privacy and stands to prevent children from accessing adult content is performing age verification at the source: on the device. The technology to accomplish this exists today. What is required is the political and social will to make it happen. We are eager to be part of this solution and are happy to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution.

In addition, many devices already offer free and easy-to-use parental control features that can prevent children from accessing adult content without risking the disclosure of sensitive user data.

The safety of our users is our number one concern. We will always comply with the law, but we hope that governments around the world will implement laws that actually protect the safety and security of users.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.