Several measures amended into House Bill 96, the biennial budget, sought to make adult content websites verify Ohio users’ ages and identities before letting them access anything.
The law went into effect last fall, but industry giant Pornhub has said the actual language doesn’t affect its site, and it’s been doing business as usual in Ohio since then. A spokesperson for Aylo, Pornhub’s parent, said Tuesday that is because of Section 230, a frequently-cited federal provision that protects online platforms from lawsuits over user-generated content.
Still, a reworked version of House Bill 84—the original legislation that went into the budget—could get an Ohio House floor vote as soon as Wednesday, after its unanimous vote in the House Technology and Innovation committee Tuesday.
The so-called “Innocence Act” was amended in February to redefine who is subject to its provisions and to give the attorney general’s office investigative powers. Rep. Steve Demetriou (R-Bainbridge Twp.) and Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Twp.) collaborated with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on changes, Demetriou said.
“To kind of see, ‘Hey, what can we do to put some teeth into this, to get them to follow the law?’” he said in an interview.
The latest version of HB 84 establishes civil violations, instead of criminal ones, that include fines as high as $100,000 each day for not abiding by the law.
“This is not good stuff,” Demetriou said. “To consume at such a young age, I think it’s been a bane in our society, and I’m really excited just as a dad, obviously as a legislator, to stand with Ohio parents and make sure we rid ourselves of this scourge.”
The Aylo spokesperson said Pornhub believes in age verification—but on devices, rather than on sites.
HB 84 also targets “nonconsensual dissemination and creation of fabricated sexual images.”
