Pennsylvania needs an age verification law

For years, many felt that it was simply impossible to fight childhood porn exposure. The most that Pennsylvania has done was pass an actionless resolution in 2017, declaring it a public health crisis. Even parental controls, such as content filters, have proven to be ineffective. 

A recent report estimated that twelve percent of all websites on the entire internet are dedicated to pornography. In 2023, the adult and pornographic websites industry generated over $1.15 billion, matching the revenue of the NCAA. Online, we are met regularly with the industry’s aggressive ads, social media follow requests, DMs, and other digital advertising tactics. But it’s not only adults who are being targeted by big porn.

With most kids having some access to the internet, studies confirm that they are being exposed to pornography online as young as age seven. By age thirteen, the majority of children have been exposed. Most of these are by accident, but they have lasting impacts on young minds.

Pornography online is not only explicit. It’s extremely graphic. Research has estimated that 88.2 percent of pornographic videos depict sexual violence, while 48.7 percent of these same videos include some kind of verbal abuse. Use of porn correlates with a lack of positive self-image, an increase in divorce, and poor mental health, all of which are now at the highest levels ever recorded. Even worse, porn is known to be one of the most difficult addictions to break—brain scans have shown that porn affects the brain similarly to addictive drugs. 

The minds, worldviews, and morals of kids are under active formation during childhood. Early exposure to porn wires their brains for addiction, distorts how they understand love, and normalizes abuse. It’s a crippling and self-replicating public health crisis as more and more children grow up in this digital age. 

The outlook seemed bleak. But this changed with the passage of a simple Louisiana law in 2022.

With broad bipartisan support, Louisiana and 24 other states passed what is known as an age verification law. These laws require pornographic websites to verify that anyone attempting to gain access to explicit content is over the age of eighteen. It’s just like how physical stores selling alcohol, cigarettes, and yes, porn, in-person must check the IDs of their customers. Technology now enables this to be done digitally, accurately, and safely via a trusted third-party age verification provider. Similar digital age verification methods have already been used since 2019 for online gambling in Pennsylvania.

In the states that passed them, age verification laws have been successful. Traffic to large porn websites decreased. In some states, rather than enact these bare-minimum protections for children, porn sites have entirely pulled out. When the porn industry sued, the Supreme Court confirmed that age verification laws are not only constitutional, but that states have an “important” and “even compelling” interest in passing them. The Court made it clear: “No person — adult or child — has a First Amendment right to access speech that is obscene to minors without first submitting proof of age.”

We must protect children from the porn industry’s predatory advertising tactics. We must ensure that children cannot stumble onto graphic pornography online. We must stop children from being damaged by pornography exposure. Age verification is a surefire way to decrease pornography exposure by young children, whose exposure is often accidental. It doesn’t replace parental guidance and accountability. It’s an important step in the right direction. The well-being of our children must precede the conveniences of adults if we are to have the healthy, thriving society needed for a free republic.

Pennsylvania now finds itself in the minority of states without an age verification law. Bipartisan age verification legislation has been sponsored by Rep. Jill Cooper (R-Westmoreland) and Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz (D-Berks) in the House, and by Sen. Cris Dush (R-Cameron) and Sen. Judy Ward (R-Blair) in the Senate, with both bills currently in committee.

The legislature has the tools. The courts have given the green light. And the kids of Pennsylvania can’t wait. It’s time to pass an age verification law — and finally put Pennsylvania’s children ahead of the porn industry.

Josiah Jones is a politics student at Hillsdale College and a 2025 PA Family Council intern. He resides in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Learn more by going to www.pafamily.org.