California AV Bill Advances Through Judiciary Committee

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Assembly Bill (AB) 3080 advanced out of the California General Assembly Judiciary Committee today. Introduced by Republican Asm. Juan Alanis of Modesto, AB 3080 would amend the existing Parent’s Accountability and Child Protection Act (PACPA) to mandate reasonable age verification requirements for pornography websites. Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), testified before the committee on behalf of the trade group's various adult entertainment industry stakeholders. A campaign has been circulated by FSC encouraging adult industry professionals in California to contact their elected officials to vote against AB 3080. "In the 16 months that bills like this have been in effect in other states, we’ve learned a lot about how they work in practice," Boden said. "One very important thing we’ve learned is that the methods available to verify one’s age online are so cumbersome and invasive that fewer than 1 percent of users actually complete the process. What they do instead, according to our data, is hit the back button and find a site that doesn’t comply with the law. "We need to protect children online, not send adults to dangerous websites with illegal content," Boden added in her testimony. She then argued that the only effective measure to verify the age of an individual logging on to a pornography website, within the context of California's existing laws, is device-level verification.  Boden concluded, "The only solution to this issue that satisfies free speech rights and protects users is at the device level." Mike Stabile, director of public affairs for FSC, took to X shortly after, applauding Boden's testimony and highlighting that she did her best to detail the risks to civil liberties and privacy rights for all members of the Judiciary Committee. "Make no mistake—this is a bad bill," Stabile posted. "But Boden has been meeting with the bill's authors and conversing with other assembly members to address issues in it. As she addressed in the hearing, AV laws have only succeeded in rerouting traffic to overseas and pirate sites." It appears that lawmakers in California are engaging in discussions with stakeholders on all sides of the debate. This hasn't been the case in other states—like Texas, for example.   AB 3080 was originally broader than its current form. The first iteration of the bill was based on model legislation circulated by far-right anti-porn activists who wanted to require age verification for websites that hosted what they deemed as "obscene" and "indecent" content. Asm. Alanis welcomed a narrowing of the bill to remove the "indecent" qualifier for the targeted content.