Age Verification Law Entering Force in Mississippi July 1

JACKSON, Miss.—Mississippi will implement age verification regulations starting on July 1. Similar to age verification measures in Virginia, Utah, Louisiana and several other states, this law requires porn websites to request government identification, a credit card number or other identifying documentation to confirm that a user is aged 18 years or older to access adult content. According to adult industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition’s legislative tracker, Senate Bill 2346—the identifier for the new law during the 2023 legislative session—is considered a “Louisiana AVS law copycat,” referring to the succession of recently adopted age verification laws across various states modeled after Louisiana's, which went into effect January 1 of this year, making it the first state in the union to implement an age verification requirement to access pornography online. Utah followed shortly, resulting in MindGeek-owned Pornhub.com and all other tube sites in the MG portfolio geo-blocking all IP addresses from the state. The Free Speech Coalition has filed suit in federal district courts challenging the age-gate laws in Utah and Louisiana on grounds that they violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. In regard to Virginia’s new age verification law, which also takes effect July 1, as well as similar ones moving toward implementation in other states, including Mississippi, FSC director of public affairs Mike Stabile told AVN Tuesday that the coalition is “looking at potential suits in every state that has passed this law.” Upon review of the legislation in Mississippi, the age verification requirements are aligned with the proposals presented in states across the country. Senate Bill (SB) 2346 will require the use of “commercial age verification systems or valid government ID on websites that contain a ‘substantial portion of material that may be harmful to minors,’” the FSC action center notes. In the engrossed text of the bill, signed by Gov. Tate Reeves on April 18, the Republican majority in the Mississippi state legislature managed to codify anti-porn talking points surrounding the effort to restrict otherwise First Amendment-protected forms of expression on the internet. Under the bill, “the legislature finds that pornography contributes to ... the hyper-sexualization of teens and prepubescent children and may lead to low self-esteem, body image disorders; an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior,” among other points debunked by mainstream sexual health experts. For example, UCLA sexual health researcher Nicole Prause referred to the scientific reasoning used to push through the age verification law recently adopted in Texas—which is similar but much more far-reaching than Mississippi's—as “completely fabricated.” Age verification is an increasingly hot topic in the adult industry as states across the union, as well as in Western European countries like France, shift towards implementing mandatory identity verification through a variety of proofing methods.