Some state lawmakers, who are seemingly unfamiliar with VPNs, want online porn sites to verify the age of anyone accessing those sites from their state.
Last month, Louisiana became the first state to require an ID from residents to access pornography online. Since then, seven states have rushed to follow in Louisiana’s footsteps. According to a tracker from Free Speech Coalition, Florida, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia introduced similar laws, and laws in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Virginia are seemingly closest to passing.
Voting on the South Dakota law was pushed to the last day of the legislative session. The issue doesn't seem to be that lawmakers are against blocking minors from porn, but the way the proposed law is written. A lobbyist for the South Dakota Newspaper Association argued that the law was too vague in both defining harmful content and which entities would be subjected to liabilities.
"If there's anything that you learn as a person who spends time on the Internet, it's that the Internet is for porn," [associate director of digital strategy for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jason] Kelley told Ars. "There are going to be places where if you want to find porn, you will be able to."
Keeping kids from finding porn is going to be difficult, if not impossible - 73% of teens surveyed said they consume online porn.
Another strategy that could help with the issue, according to Common Sense Media, is "providing minors with comprehensive sex education and encouraging parents to more openly discuss pornography with their kids." Maybe touch on how it's not real, those are actors, it's for adults. That sort of thing.
Before completely panicking about teens watching porn, keep in mind another thing from Common Sense Media: “There has been little research on the effects of pornography on adolescents, and so we should remain alert to alarmist headlines about pornography being a public health crisis or destroying America’s youth.” Because we don't know either of those things to be true.
Just talk to your kids.
Read more at Ars Technica