South Dakota lawmakers want to make it harder to watch porn on the internet

Proposal targets youth consumption of pornography, considers law that shut Pornhub down in other states

PIERRE — The world’s leading pornography website no longer streams in some parts of the country.

But South Dakota won’t be joining those states — Montana, North Carolina, Virginia, Utah and Mississippi — in adopting similar laws to allow parents to sue Pornhub and other adult-content producers if their children are exposed to pornography. That is unless proponents of House Bill 1257 can convince enough members of the state Senate to revive the measure in the final days of the 2024 Legislative Session.

The bill killed this week in a Senate committee would have also required pornographic websites to verify the ages of consumers before granting access to IP (internet protocol) addresses located in South Dakota. Backers of the legislation say its necessary because parents and schools struggle to combat increasing porn consumption among youth.

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But opponents contend the bill brought by Rep. Bethany Soye is too broad, could inadvertently restrict access to general social media websites, and would be difficult to enforce.

“Twitter itself says 15 percent of all videos posted there are pornographic videos,” Sen. Mike Rohl said Thursday before voting against the measure during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday morning.