RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina law establishing age verification requirements for adult websites will go into effect Monday.
Religious conservative legislators added the requirements to an unrelated education bill, HB 8, which originally only addressed computer science requirements in North Carolina’s high schools.
The inserted section mandating age verification for adult websites was given its own title, the Pornography Age Verification Enforcement Act (PAVE).
As XBIZ reported, in late September, Sen. Amy Galey (R-Alamance) snuck the copycat amendment mirroring other states’ age verification requirements into the high school requirements bill.
Galey justified her amendment by saying the measure was needed “to protect our children,” citing the seven other states that had passed similar laws and noting with satisfaction that overall traffic to adult websites in Louisiana dropped 80% after that state’s age verification law passed.
Several adult websites have already disabled access in North Carolina due to upcoming PAVE liability.
North Carolinians trying to access Pornhub are currently led to a page with the statement: “The safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. We believe that the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to identify users by their device and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification. Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in North Carolina.”
Leading conservative anti-porn crusaders have admitted that the state-by-state age verification laws are merely a stepping stone in an organized effort to ban all adult content online and revive obscenity prosecutions.
The original version of PAVE empowered the North Carolina attorney general to enforce the law, but the final version omits that provision.
The NC Values Coalition, a powerful religious conservative group led by veteran GOP culture war crusaders, strongly endorsed the measure.
The group’s political director, Laura Macklem, told local news site The Center Square in September, “This is an important issue for NC Values, and we applaud Senator Galey for taking leadership with this amendment to protect minors from pornography. NC Values will be watching to make certain the anti-pornography provision in HB 8 is enforced, and we will be there for support in the face of any legal challenges.”
The NC Values statement celebrating the passage of PAVE mischaracterized adult content as illegal “obscenity.”
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) signed HB 8 into law in October, disregarding a letter from the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) noting several concerns with the age verification addition and urging him to veto the bill.
FSC Director of Public Affairs Mike Stabile told XBIZ on Tuesday, “Like many of last year’s anti-porn bills, HB 8 was passed with little public awareness and little chance for opposition.”
Industry Attorneys React to PAVE
Industry attorney Corey Silverstein, of Silverstein Legal, told XBIZ that PAVE will require companies that publish or distribute pornography to have an age verification system in place to ensure visitors are 18 or older. Companies will not be allowed to keep any information shared through age verification.
“Internet providers will not be held responsible for violating age verification solely for providing access or connection to or from a website,” Silverstein noted.
“In essence this law is another copycat law that started with Louisiana,” he added. “I still believe that once anyone actually tries to enforce this law, there will be a constitutional battle as to its validity. In my opinion, this law is unconstitutional and runs afoul of established case law. However, politicians seem more interested in making their conservative voter bases happy than upholding the Constitution that they swore to protect.”
Fellow industry attorney Lawrence Walters, of Walters Law Group, echoed Silverstein, calling PAVE “another copycat law allowing enforcement through private civil suits. The law contains all of the same constitutional defects as the previous bills and laws on which it is based.”
According to Stabile, similar bills are ramping up in dozens of additional states, including bills that call for criminal prosecution of website operators.
“The prospect may seem daunting, but as an industry and an organization, we’re more organized and better prepared than we’ve ever been,” Stabile said. “We look forward to getting into the legislative outlook, our legal challenges and our overall strategy during the upcoming FSC panels at XBIZ LA.”
Insert Image: PAVE supporters and NC Values leaders Tami Fitzgerald and Mary Summa.
