A Republican lawmaker in Tennessee has introduced legislation to implement age-verification requirements to protect kids from being exposed to pornography.
The “Protect Tennessee Minors Act,” sponsored by state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood (R), would mandate pornography distributors put in place age-verification measures to ensure minors in the Volunteer State are barred from accessing sexually explicit content.
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“Exposing children to pornography is a form of child sexual abuse and exploitation that can severely damage a child’s intellectual development and emotional well-being,” said Hazlewood, chair of the House Finance, Ways, and Means Committee. “It can lead to difficulty in forming and maintaining positive relationships. This legislation will apply the same safeguards and restrictions to the online world that we already have in place in the physical world. The standard should be the same.”
The legislative proposal is similar to laws already in place in Utah and Virginia, where the largest pornography distributor — Pornhub — is inaccessible.
Pornhub blocked Virginians’ access to its platform in retaliation to the commonwealth’s law requiring the site implement an age-verification system. Pornhub has claimed the statute violates users’ privacy.
As CBN Digital reported, there are serious legal concerns with Pornhub and other pornography distributors, not least
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