House Bill 498, a new piece of legislation that was passed in Idaho in July, aims to protect minors from harmful sexual material online by restricting access to all adult content sites in Idaho.
In order to ban online adult material, the state installed “reasonable age verification methods” that websites must adhere to prove that only adults are accessing them. With these age verification methods, a resident must provide a digitized identification card every time they want to access a website.
Some sites have foregone requiring reasonable age verification methods, instead choosing to block access to the site completely. Pornhub is one such site, displaying a message on its homepage stating, “Mandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply. As we’ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place.”
The State of Idaho used various studies to legitimize the bill, showing that early exposure to sexual material is harmful to minors. They proved that access to adult content like pornography can cause low self-esteem, body image disorders, shaping of deviant sexual arousal, and could lead to difficulty forming and maintaining healthy relationships.
According to the humanitarian aid organization UNICEF, “Efforts to regulate content and restrict children’s access to pornography have not kept pace with technological shifts that have profoundly altered the landscape for the consumption of pornography.”
With manipulation and loopholes, there are some who find ways around this blockage using virtual private networks or other means to access these websites.
The State of Idaho left some things up to interpretation in the bill with ambiguous language. If a case ever goes to court regarding this policy, the jury will have to interpret the language themselves to rule on the case.
Within the bill, there are parameters as to what harmful material is defined as, stating, “Material that the average person applying contemporary community standards would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest.”
Prurient interests are defined as “marked by or arousing an immoderate or unwholesome interest or desire,” according to Merriam-Webster. In legal terms, it refers to a shameful interest in sex or nudity. These definitions leave room for interpretation of what exactly is considered as such.
House Bill 498 also gives permission for persons or family members negatively affected by harmful material to pursue legal action against the platform. If the accuser can prove there was harm done to the minor, they can be compensated.
The bill defines harmful material as “material that, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value to minors.” Under these restrictions, one could argue that an R-rated movie, accessible to anyone above the age of 17, that depicts sexual scenes falls under the category of lacking serious artistic value in the case of minors viewing.
If the bill is ever repealed, Idaho residents will have a four-year window to seek action against the platform in a court of law.
Allyssa Dotson can be reached at [email protected]