A bill to restrict minors’ access to internet pornography was killed by the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
The proposal would have allowed minors who viewed obscene content on an adult site to sue the webpage's owner. To avoid liability, websites would have to use state-issued identification or “transactional data” to verify users’ ages.
Sen. Jessica Castleberry, R-Rapid City, told the committee the bill addresses a “public health concern.”
“Extreme, degrading and violent pornography is only one click away for our children,” she said. “It damages their development and warps their concept of sex.”
Lisa Gennaro is a lobbyist for Concerned Women for America. In committee testimony, she claimed “off the chart rates” of underage porn consumption is leading to increased domestic violence.
“The sheriffs and our police officers and other people are seeing that the violence in dating has just exploded,” she said. “One of the number one [reasons] is pornography.”
Louisiana passed similar legislation last year, Castleberry noted. The language in her proposal is nearly identical to that law. Six other state legislatures have also considered verification mandates this year.
The bill includes exemptions for internet service providers and employees of media publications. But advocates from both industries spoke against the proposal, arguing the carveouts don’t go far enough.
Lobbyist Justin Smith spoke against the bill for the SD Newspapers Association. He said the organization doesn’t condone pornography. However, he worries the proposal creates liability for news entities because it only protects individual employees.
“We just have to be careful before we put things like this into law, with all of these open-ended questions that put South Dakota businesses at risk,” Smith said.
The bill affects websites where at least 33.33% of content is “harmful to minors” under state law.
The South Dakota Telecommunications Association also opposed the legislation. Lobbyist Ellie Bailey said the “parameters” for the exemption are imprecise.
“There’s significant concerns here of the liability for our member companies,” she said.
Sen. David Wheeler, R-Huron, moved to defer the bill to the 41st legislative day. He said the bill’s proponents were “on the right track,” but questioned the effectiveness of the bill’s approach.
“All of these commercial entities that you’re trying to get to are going to be out of state…potentially overseas,” he said. “I don’t know that we can regulate the entire internet from South Dakota.”
The motion to defer passed 5-2.