South Dakota joins 19 states with age-verification law after Senate passes anti-porn bill

Yahoo

20-02-2025

PIERRE — South Dakota lawmakers are taking steps to limit access to online pornography by anyone under 18.
The state Senate took up House Bill 1053, a bill that would require users to verify they are at least 18 years old to access websites that feature adult content.
The bill requires websites considered a "covered platform," or websites which regularly "create, host, or make available material that is harmful to minors," to implement a means of verifying a user's age. These websites would also be prohibited from selling or retaining any identifying information of an individual collected during the verification process.
Verification methods include providing a state-issued driver's license or "non-driver identification card"; bank account information; or a debit or credit card.
Under the bill, websites that do not comply with user identification requirements would first receive a letter from the attorney general notifying the company of its violation. If new measures are not implemented in 90 days, the company would be fined a civil penalty of up to $5,000 and may be subject to a class one misdemeanor charge. Subsequent violations would open the company up to class six felony charges, according to the bill.
A Senate variant defined "covered platforms" similarly but with the small caveat that a website qualifies if 33.3% of its content is considered harmful to minors.
On Tuesday, the House version passed out of committee unanimously, while the Senate counterpart was tabled on a five to two vote.
And on Wednesday, HB 1053 passed the Senate near-unanimously with 34 "yes" votes — one state senator excused. The legislation went undebated on the floor.
If signed into law, South Dakota would become the 20th U.S. state to have passed a law requiring online visitors of adult websites to verify their age. Eighteen of the 19 states have enacted their age-verification law, while Georgia's version of the legislation goes into effect on July 1.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing a Texas case brought by an appeal from the Free Speech Coalition, a group representing the adult entertainment industry, according to NPR. Lawyers for the group argued that a 2023 Texas bill similar to the one passed by the South Dakota Legislature infringes on First Amendment rights for free speech and overly restricts adult access to material that should be protected by the Constitution.
The prime sponsor of the House bill, Rep. Bethany Soye, R-Sioux Falls, pointed to Louisiana, one of the first states to pass similar age verification legislation. She said the one-third standard was an "arbitrary" number that other states have tried to copy.
"If you look at the decision of the court in each of those places, what they focused on was the one-third standard," Soye told Senate Judiciary members Tuesday. "The idea is, well, OK, one-third of a website is porn, then it's bad for kids, and we should keep them off. If it's 25%, then it's fine. Is that really a compelling state interest? Seems pretty arbitrary."
Most of the Tuesday testimony came from supporters of Soye's legislation who focused on the adult entertainment industry and the spread of pornographic content among youth.
Lisa Gennaro with Concerned Women for America, a conservative, evangelical Christian nonprofit focused on public policy, said the porn industry is purposefully creating a "flow of content that is toxic for minors."
"The porn industry has hijacked our kids, and they know they're doing it," Gennaro said. "They know if they can get them at an early age, then they have a consumer for life."
Holly Strand, a forensic examiner with the Pennington County Sheriff's Office, testified to the committee on Tuesday.
Strand, who said she is assigned to cases of pornography, exploitation, solicitation and sex trafficking where children are involved, told the committee the word "porn" has trickled down from high school teens into the vocabulary of elementary school children.
"About five years ago, we had a kindergartner ask us how to handle pornography, and it was all downhill from there," Strand said. "I had a mom call me … Her son asked her what the word 'anal' meant, and when she asked him where he heard it, his response was, 'There's a kid on the bus that looks at anal on the way to school,' and he doesn't understand why all the kids want to sit next to him when he doesn't even know what that word means."
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota opposed the legislature's support of the age-verification bill, viewing it as "invasive" and a violation of the privacy and constitutional rights of the state's residents.
In a Wednesday press release, ACLU-SD Advocacy Manager Samantha Chapman stated efforts to "childproof the internet" impacts access to information for people broadly, while "failing to actually protect children."
"Is there harmful content on the internet for young viewers? Undoubtedly. But not every societal ill requires a solution from the government," Chapman wrote. "We can, and should, make the internet safer for minors. But we can do this without sacrificing our privacy and Constitutional rights."
The bill now heads to Gov. Larry Rhoden's desk, where it is likely to be signed into law.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota Senate passes law requiring age verification on porn sites