VIEWPOINT | Thinking critically about legislation 'safeguarding' minors
Guest column by Ben Sherman
In the ongoing debate over House Bill 1257, a bill purportedly aimed at safeguarding minors from harmful media content, both proponents and opponents share a common concern for the well-being of children. However, a closer examination reveals significant flaws in the proposed legislation.
Opponents argue that porn exposure to minors is bad, which is true. The message is conveyed that by voting against this bill, you support porn access for children. However, the mechanisms of the bill are not an effective solution to solve a real problem. This bill has garnered the support it has because its easy to talk about how we should protect children.
Many proponents of the bill will cite pornographic internet traffic has been reduced by as much as 80 percent in states like Louisiana. In reality, these changes are likely attributable to adult citizens using a Virtual Private Network (VPNs) to easily change their geolocation data that websites are looking at when determining whether to ask a user for age verification.
POINT: South Dakota senators failed to protect children from pornography
COUNTERPOINT: Age verification bill will not keep your kids safer, will risk privacy
The enforceability of this bill outside of South Dakota is in most cases impractical, if not impossible. It is hard to sue across state lines and practically impossible to sue internationally. This means a website could host their content in a state with out these laws or they could host it in Canada, Mexico or anywhere in the world where this bill would have no legal jurisdiction. These sites would still be accessible by minors or anyone with the passage of HB 1257.
The way in which age verification would likely be implemented raises privacy and online security concerns. The method of age verification that would end up being used in South Dakota would be accomplished by scanning a users state-issued ID and taking selfies of them. South Dakota doesn't have any laws prohibiting companies from sharing personal information without the users consent.
With the passage of these bills in other states, there is a buck to be made where businesses and innovation will incur the cost. One of the proponents of the bill, a company called Aristotle, is a commercial vendor and stands to profit if this bill is passed. They claim there service costs 2 cents per verification, but we all know this can add up, and their model may have additional license fees burdened on the web platform using their product. Any citizen could bring a civil lawsuit against a plethora of everyday sites we all use. X (Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, Hulu, Youtube, Etsy and Ebay all have content that is not suitable for children. An amendment made early on to the bill would make it so people could pursue civil action lawsuits, resulting in frivolous lawsuits and could be easily abused to maliciously target online businesses and content hosts.
RELATED: South Dakota lawmakers want to make it harder to watch porn on the internet
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