INDIANAPOLIS — A bill requiring adult websites to verify the ages of users is drawing pushback from civil rights advocates, who argue it violates free speech and could lead to online censorship of age-appropriate LGBTQ+ content.
Senate Bill 17 stipulates that any website that displays “material harmful to minors” must use an age verification method to ensure only adults are accessing the content. That includes users submitting documentation such a credit card or driver’s license, or using a third-party verification system.
Websites that don’t comply could be sued for damages by parents or the attorney general, who could issue a civil penalty up to $250,000.
The legislation received near unanimous support from lawmakers, who approved it on Tuesday. It now heads to the governor’s desk. Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, who authored the bill, said it aims to put “speed bumps” on minors accessing pornography or other “harsh” adult content.
“We need to make sure it’s not as accessible as just turning your phone on,” he said in a committee hearing. “A 16-year-old cannot walk in and buy an adult magazine. They cannot walk into a strip bar.”
But basing access on the broadly defined phrase “material harmful to minors” could ultimately be used to target age-appropriate LGBTQ+ or sex education content, argued the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.
“We’ve already witnessed a systematic effort to censor access to LGBTQ+ literature in Indiana’s schools and libraries using the phrase ‘material harmful to minors,’” the group said in a release. “The internet may emerge as the new battleground in some legislators’ efforts to erase LGBTQ+ Hoosiers.”
The legislation is almost sure to face litigation from adult entertainment trade groups, which have sued multiple states that have passed similar legislation, according to ACLU Director Chris Daley.
A federal judge last year halted a bill in Texas that required age verification, writing that it was “not narrowly tailored and chills the speech of… adults who wish to access sexual materials.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has also deemed age verification requirements to be unconstitutional when a less restrictive alternative exists, like the voluntary installation of parental control filters, according to the ACLU.
However, a federal judge in August upheld Utah’s law. That led to the adult content site Pornhub to completely disable access in the state to the website over concerns it couldn’t comply with the legislation and would face an avalanche of litigation.
Daley warned legislators in January the state would be sued if Senate Bill 17 passed. “It would be like lighting Indiana taxpayer funds on fire” to defend the legislation in court, he said.
Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, was one of two senators to vote against the bill. He expressed concerns that adult websites would use or sell personal data submitted for age verification. The bill does include language banning websites or thirdparty services from keeping personal data.
Indiana is one of 26 states that submitted age-verification legislation this year. Most of those are based on a Louisiana bill approved in 2022. Eight states in 2023 followed suit with their own legislation, according to the Free Speech Coalition, the adult entertainment’s trade association.
“In the wake of Louisiana’s new law … a flurry of copycat legislation has been introduced by well-meaning but poorly-informed politicians who don’t understand the real-world impacts of the laws they are proposing,” the coalition said in a release.
Daley with the ACLU agreed Indiana’s law is wellintentioned, but argued it still violates the First Amendment and could open up LGBTQ+ censorship on websites.
“I’m very sympathetic to the goals,” he said. “But we do recognize that our constitution requires laws to be appropriately tailored to protect free speech. We can make the internet safer without sacrificing our privacy and constitutional rights.”
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