AUSTIN — The Texas legislature has passed a new age verification law that also compels all adult websites to post pseudoscientific, anti-porn propaganda disclaimers declaring that “pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses and weakens brain function.”
The Texas House passed the amended HB 1181 — a much augmented version of the Louisiana age verification law and its many copycats — on Thursday and sent it today to Gov. Greg Abbott to be signed into law.
The measure, echoing the debunked “porn addiction” language of faith-based anti-porn groups, was spearheaded by religious Republicans but was supported by almost every single Democratic state legislator.
“Texas joins Louisiana, Utah, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Montana in passing a blatantly unconstitutional law and violation of the First Amendment rights of creators, consumers and platforms,” posted Free Speech Coalition (FSC) on its Twitter account. “Texas becomes the latest state to pass an antiporn bill, requiring not only invasive age-verification, but that all sites post a pseudoscientific warning about porn from the Texas Health and Human Services Department. We will fight it and we will win.”
The original text of HB 1181 was passed by the House on May 9 by a 141-0 vote with 2 present and not voting. The Senate passed it on May 19 by a 31-0 vote, and on Thursday the House concurred in Senate amendments, 133-1 with 2 present and not voting.
The bill mandates age verification by creating liability to any website when more than one-third of its content is “sexual material harmful to minors” unless the site “uses reasonable age verification methods to verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older.”
The age verification methods suggested by the state of Texas would “require an individual to provide digital identification; or comply with a commercial age verification system that verifies age using government-issued identification, or a commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of an individual.”
The Texas law incorporates an addition to the age verification language of other states’ copycat bills by ordering “all advertisements” for adult websites to post, “in 14-point font or larger,” a pseudoscientific statement derived from anti-porn propaganda.
Every adult site accessible in state must publish the following three “Texas Health and Human Services Warnings”: “Pornography is potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses and weakens brain function;” “Exposure to this content is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses;” and “Pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation and child pornography.”
The websites are also compelled by the state to post the phone number of a helpline for the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.”
The law is to take effect Sept. 1.