Ohio Lawmaker Wants To Criminally Charge Minors Who Watch Porn to Protect Minors. What?

In the latest chapter of my laziness writing on the crazy escapades of anti-porn Republicans for Techdirt, I wish to introduce you to Ohio state Rep. Steve Demetriou, who represents Bainbridge Township.

Rep. Demetriou introduced the Innocence Act, or House Bill (HB) 295, on October 11, 2023.

I wrote about the bill over at AVN.com and for the Cleveland Scene. Gustavo Turner of XBIZ also covered House Bill 295. Cleveland.com provided us with some local coverage of the bill. 

Rep. Demetriou’s bill is the latest proposal by an anti-porn lawmaker who intends to require age verification to access an adult entertainment website, including Pornhub, Xvideos, or xHamster. 

HB 295 features the same elements of the other so-called “copycat” age verification proposals inspired by Louisiana, which became the first in the United States to have a law requiring the adoption of age verification for users from local IP addresses to see adult content. The copycat bills have escalated in severity with Utah and Texas as two of the more severe cases. But it is a safe bet to say that Demetriou’s version takes the cake for the most severe age-gating bill.

According to the introduced bill text, House Bill 295 makes it a crime — a felony — for websites that fail to deploy age verification measures to check the ages of users from Ohio IP addresses. 

Demetriou also proposes to make it a crime — a misdemeanor — for anyone who manages to get around an age-gate on a website through, say, a VPN or proxy. He explicitly mentions minors.

A press release announcing the bill states: 

If this legislation is enacted, pornography distributors would be charged with a third-degree felony for failing to verify the age of a person accessing the adult content. If a minor attempts to access sexually explicit material by falsifying their identity, they would be charged with a fourth-degree misdemeanor.

Language in House Bill 295 confirms this:

Whoever violates…this section is guilty of failure to verify age of person accessing materials that are obscene or harmful to juveniles, a felony of the third degree.

Whoever violates…this section is guilty of use of false identifying information to access materials that are obscene or harmful to juveniles, a misdemeanor of the fourth degree.

Demetriou told Cleveland.com, the official web platform for The Plain Dealer newspaper, that this is a “common sense” approach to ensuring minors don’t circumvent an age gate. “Obviously, we’re not trying to target children with regards to criminal enforcement… but we want to make sure they’re protected,” Rep. Demetriou told Cleveland.com reporter Jeremy Pelzer. Demetriou said that the proposed criminal penalty targeting minors is a “deterrent” other than being a law that could compel prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against teenagers for being teenagers.

House Bill 295 was referred to the House Criminal Justice Committee and is awaiting markup. Rep. Demetriou did tell Cleveland.com that he is open to cleaning up the “kinks in this bill.” 

For the Cleveland Scene, criminal defense attorney Corey Silverstein told me the bill is, obviously, a bad idea. 

“I can’t think of a worse idea than charging minors with criminal offenses for viewing adult content and potentially ruining their futures,” he told me in my Scene report. “Attempting to shame and embarrass minors for viewing adult-themed content goes so far beyond common sense that it begs the question of whether the supporters of this bill gave it any thought at all.”

Civil liberties organizations are already alarmed at the potential implications of age verification laws in other parts of the country. For example, the American Civil Liberties Union and others filed an amicus brief at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals supporting plaintiffs in Free Speech Coalition v. Colmenero. Texas adopted an age verification law requiring pseudoscientific public health labeling for adult websites.

404 Media’s Sam Cole pointed this out with Vixen Media, a premium network of paysites, sharing the so-called public health messaging for Texas users. The Free Speech Coalition, an advocacy group for the adult industry, sued Texas with companies that own some of the most popular adult entertainment websites in the world. The ACLU said that the law in Texas overwhelmingly violates the First Amendment rights of adult sites and adult site users.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, having survived his impeachment, has substituted then-interim Attorney General Angela Colemenro. That case is now Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton.

Michael McGrady covers the tech and legal sides of the online porn business, among other things. He is the legal and political contributing editor for AVN.com.