PHOENIX — Arizona Governor Kate Hobbs on Friday vetoed HB 2133, the “Protect Act,” which would have imposed new requirements for adult content uploaded online.
The bill was part of the current legislative trend aimed at addressing nonconsensual intimate images online, including those generated by AI. However, it also included new verification and consent requirements for adult websites.
Under those requirements, adult sites would have been required to use “reasonable” verification methods to ensure that any individual depicted in sexual material was over 18 and had provided consent, and to maintain records of such verification for at least seven years.
While those age and consent provisions reflect measures already considered standard in the industry, an earlier draft of the bill included a contradictory provision forbidding producers from retaining identifying information after model age verification was complete. This “catch-22” would have effectively made it impossible for adult sites to operate in Arizona, but was eliminated during the amendment process.
As XBIZ reported in April, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) worked closely with the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Nick Kupper, on that and other substantive changes to the legislation.
FSC Director of Public Policy Mike Stabile told XBIZ that HB 2133 would have applied the consent and age-verification protocols that the adult industry uses to mainstream platforms that host sexual material deemed “harmful to minors.”
“I suspect mainstream tech platforms and media had concerns about our more intensive protocols being applied to them,” said Stabile. “A platform like X, for example, doesn't want to have to collect model releases or IDs for everyone in every uploaded video, nor moderate every photo or video clip before it goes live.”
In her veto letter, Hobbs explains that she vetoed HB 2133 because the bill would have had a “chilling effect” on free speech, but reassures the legislature that current state law already covers AI-generated images for revenge porn, and that the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act further protects Arizonans from being victimized online.