LOS ANGELES — Adult industry attorney Corey D. Silverstein will host the next live, online edition of his "Legal Impact" series, titled "Age Verification Legislation: What the &^$% is Going On?!" next Monday at 1 p.m. PDT.
Guests will include fellow attorney Lawrence Walters, performer and producer Charlie Forde and Grooby CEO Steven Grooby.
The session, sponsored by YourPaysitePartner (YPP), will be moderated by Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals. Featured guests will be announced next week.
"What do California, Utah, Tennessee, Kansas, and Florida all currently have in common? They, along several other US states, all currently have pending age verification legislation on the books… in 2023," said a rep. "Although this issue was presumably handled with the Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union decision back in 1997, age verification is back — what the &^$% is going on?."
Silverstein noted the growth of age verification legislation across the country.
“The flood of new state legislation requiring age verification and various other forms of censorship is snowballing,” Silverstein said. “Politicians are seemingly in a race for who can come up with the most outlandish forms of speech suppression.”
“It’s time to get real and have an open discussion about what’s going on,” he continued.
Steven Grooby explained that age verification "is now active in some US states, and other territories will follow. The adult industry has been somewhat engaged, but the next few years is going to be a changing landscape as legislators for each state demand different barriers and different companies compete for a share of the income.”
Charlie Forde underscored Grooby’s point, stating that, “In Australia, I’m lucky because sex work is being decriminalized state by state, and this gives me a lot of protection. America is very different, and the vast majority of payment gateways follow American laws, predominantly.”
“No one in the industry wants children to be exposed to non-age-appropriate content... We want to protect children in ways that don’t result in discrimination against our industry,” Forde added. “The industry needs to be engaged because we are the only people who can really advocate for ourselves. No other industries are going to protect us.”
Click here to register; a Zoom event link will be emailed to registered attendees one hour before the webinar begins.
Live "Legal Impact" webinars are free to attend for all members of the adult entertainment community and will be posted subsequently on MyAdultAttorney and Adult.law.
Follow Corey D. Silverstein on Twitter.
