{"id":10807,"date":"2025-02-22T10:04:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T17:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=10807"},"modified":"2025-02-22T10:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T17:28:13","slug":"wyoming-closer-to-requiring-id-to-verify-age-to-access-porn-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2025\/02\/22\/wyoming-closer-to-requiring-id-to-verify-age-to-access-porn-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyoming Closer To Requiring ID To Verify Age To Access Porn Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They’re trying it here in Wyoming. This is really just an incremental strategy towards digital ID to access the internet. Consequently, kids can fake these identifying methods or use a VPN or Tor for that matter to access material anywhere. At the moment as I browse this story I appear to be in New York. I can switch to just about anywhere in the world or the states as a way to mask my activity from ISPs and the government. As we live in a world of snoopers with authoritarian goals, your privacy online is a problem. Eventually they want digital ID and to outlaw VPNs, Tor… They were working on legislation, the RESTRICT Act<\/a>, where they could break into machines of anyone accessing certain foreign sites at will, which when examined would make it a criminal offense to be using a VPN or Tor to mask such activity. And they always use kids and pornography to justify us giving up our rights to privacy, and if successful we’ll have none. And really, protecting kids from pornography and sick content online is the responsibility of parents in filtering access and controlling their devices, as well as managing their friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/cowboystatedaily.com\/2025\/02\/21\/wyoming-closer-to-requiring-age-verification-to-access-porn-sites\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
The pornography industry did not show up to challenge a Wyoming bill that would require porn websites to verify ages with IDs before allowing access. After unanimously passing out of committee Thursday, the bill will be debated by the full Senate. <\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Clair McFarland<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The pornography industry did not show up challenge a Wyoming bill that would require porn websites to verify ages with IDs before allowing access. After unanimously passing out of committee Feb. 20, 2025, the bill will be debated by the full Senate.  (Matt Idler for Cowboy State Daily)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pornography industry did not show up to testify against a Wyoming bill that would require pornographic websites to verify their users\u2019 ages before allowing access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyoming\u2019s legislative Senate Judiciary Committee advanced House Bill 43<\/u><\/a> by a 5-0 vote during its Thursday committee meeting, sending it to the Senate floor for debate and three readings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Senate passes the bill without any changes to which the House of Representatives objects, it will head next to Gov. Mark Gordon\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill goes far beyond just asking people to check a box saying their 18 or older. It calls for “reasonable age verification measures” like an ID card, a credit or debit card from a company that only serves adults, or “any other means or method that reliably and accurately can determine whether a user of a covered platform is a minor.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill\u2019s sponsor, Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, said HB 43 is modeled around a recent federal appeals court\u2019s decision upholding a Texas age verification law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Supreme Court is now reviewing that same decision and law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawley touted her bill as legally defensible and necessary to protect children from material correlated with sex trafficking, violence and addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve long been concerned about the safety of children online (due to) the growth \u2014 explosion, really \u2014 of devices that connect to the internet and to a world unknown,\u201d Lawley told the committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading unspecified studies, Lawley said most kids who encounter pornography for the first time do so unintentionally. The claim aligns with a 2023 survey by Commonsense Media<\/u><\/a> in which 58% of surveyed teens reported they\u2019d encountered online pornography unintentionally.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pornography industry employs sophisticated tactics to target children, such as pop-up ads, misleading links and enticing visuals,\u201d Lawley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rep.
Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, center, sponsored House Bill 43, which would require pornography websites to verify ages through IDs to operate in Wyoming. (Matt Idler for Cowboy State Daily)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Airing Dirty Laundry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

HB 43 doesn\u2019t call on Wyoming prosecutors to charge pornography website publishers. It would let parents whose kids access pornography platforms sue those platforms for damages and other costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It covers platforms that publish obscene material or child pornography “as a regular course of business.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill would also let people sue the porn sites if those sites, or their third-party age-verification services, retained people\u2019s personal data after verifying their ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Privacy concerns were a crux of the debate around HB 43 while it was still pending in the House of Representatives last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a Jan. 28 House debate, Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, said even facial recognition technology at airports makes him uneasy, \u201cbecause I don\u2019t trust the federal government to not keep track of me when I do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letting private companies take people\u2019s pictures seems even more invasive, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCompanies are selling our data,\u201d said Yin. \u201cI am worried about the privacy protections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yin acknowledged that people can sue for privacy breaches under the bill\u2019s language, but he worried that wouldn\u2019t be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawley cast his concern as disproportionate to the bill\u2019s benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo say because of that fear you don\u2019t think we should basically protect children from online pornography doesn\u2019t quite balance out for me,\u201d said Lawley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this, Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, bristled. She\u2019d also raised several questions about the bill\u2019s potential invasiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI take some offense, quite frankly, to saying we don\u2019t want to protect children because he wave legitimate concerns about privacy and data,\u201d said Provenza. \u201cHaving questions is not an indicator that I don\u2019t care about children\u2019s safety.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Provenza also acknowledged the civil lawsuit mechanism for breach of privacy, but questioned whether anyone would be willing to use it by airing their \u201cdirty laundry\u201d publicly in a court of law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
An example of the age verification page of a pornography site operating in Louisiana. A bill is moving through the Wyoming Legislature that would require the same here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tendons<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Iain Corby, executive director for the Age Verification Providers Association, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that one tactic certified age verification sites will use is to take someone\u2019s photo and compare it with their own provided photograph of their ID card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He listed other tactics, like having someone wiggle his forefinger and thumb to denote the ratio of the tendon between them compared with other parts of the hand \u2014 an age indicator accurate to within a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies may also investigate whether someone has used his email address for tasks a child wouldn\u2019t undertake, like signing up for utilities or comparing mortgage interest rates, said Corby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Gary Crum, R-Laramie, asked how courts can be sure age verification providers are being faithful with age verification if they\u2019re discarding people\u2019s data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corby said age verification providers are vetted and certified, a status pornography sites can use as a defense in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They’re trying it here in Wyoming. This is really just an incremental strategy towards digital ID to access the internet. Consequently, kids can fake these identifying methods or use a VPN or Tor for that matter to access material anywhere. At the moment as I browse this story I appear to be in New York. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-wyoming"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10807"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10815,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807\/revisions\/10815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}