Reason Roundup

Louisiana Now Checking IDs for Watching Porn

Plus: Still no House speaker, the gender gap in college scholarships, Meta fined $414 million, and more...

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shadowy figure in hoodie in front of a screen that says Pornhub | Miguel Candela/ZUMA Press/Newscom
(Miguel Candela/ZUMA Press/Newscom)

A law that took effect in Louisiana this week means visitors to adult websites must now provide identification. Anyone under 18 years of age is prohibited.

MindGeek, the parent company behind Pornhub and other popular adult platforms, now requires visitors in Louisiana to submit their driver's license or state ID before viewing any videos.

The rule change comes as a result of Louisiana House Bill 142, which was passed last year. It says platforms must check IDs if "more than thirty-three and one-third percent of total material" on the platform could be defined as "material harmful to
minors." The law defines "material harmful to minors" to include basically any pornographic content, and then some. The definition includes not just depictions or descriptions of various body parts ("pubic hair, anus, vulva, genitals, or nipple of the female breast") and any sex act but also "any material that the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest."

Porn platforms can verify viewer ages using an app developed by the state government called LA Wallet, which digitizes driver's licenses.

What could go wrong? So much!

Sure, most people would prefer minors not log on to porn websites. But do lawmakers really think this will actually prevent motivated teenagers from finding online porn? Not only can they still access online porn platforms not subject to Louisiana laws, but they can also still view porn on U.S. platforms so long as porn only makes up a portion of a platform's content. They could also easily use a VPN to mask their real locations.

While the law might not actually stop minors from glimpsing naked bodies, it will infringe on the privacy of plenty of adults, providing a record of everyone who wants to watch videos on Pornhub or other popular porn platforms.

Porn platforms are instructed not to store any data from LA Wallet after verifying ages. But mistakes can be made. And it's unclear how LA Wallet records and retains information about where it's been used.

https://twitter.com/fodderyfodder/status/1610014207533060099

If the idea is to promote responsible porn production, distribution, and consumption, Louisiana's law could actually backfire, especially if other states—or the federal government—start to follow suit.

Privacy-minded adults (and teens blocked from legal access) may proceed to abandon U.S.-based porn platforms in favor of sites based in places without ID requirements. And those platforms may also have more lax protocols around piracy, performer safety, performer age verification, and profit-sharing with performers, as well as less (or no) responsiveness to U.S. law enforcement and courts when something is amiss.

The fact that platforms can circumvent Louisiana's ID requirement if two-thirds of their content isn't porn could lead to some interesting workarounds—and possibly unintended consequences, too. Platforms serving up porn may decide to load up on other kinds of content, as well, thereby drawing in even greater numbers of viewers. And there's nothing saying the non-porn content must be watched as much as the porn content.

Interestingly, the age of sexual consent in Louisiana is just 17 years old. So the state thinks 17-year-olds are old enough to have sex, but not old enough to watch people having sex.

FOLLOW-UP

Still no speaker of the House. After a day of voting…and voting…and voting, U.S. lawmakers have still failed to coalesce around a candidate for House speaker. California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who served as House minority leader since 2019, is still trying, but his chances appear to be getting slimmer. After three votes failed to go his way on Tuesday, six votes yesterday saw a number of Republicans again and again vote against him. And some of the strongest anti-McCarthy voices—including Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert—show no signs of budging.

"This was the first time in 100 years that the election of a speaker of the House went beyond a first ballot," notes The Washington Post. "We are in purgatory. A historic game of chicken was unfolding on the House floor Wednesday. It was a blend of bottleneck and train wreck."

See also: Libertarian former Rep. Justin Amash talks to Reason's Robby Soave about his bid to serve as a compromise House speaker.

FREE MINDS

The scholarship gap. Men are now going to college at lower rates than women and struggling to stay in school once there. "As far as I can tell, 'Male' is the only noticeably underrepresented demographic in college that is also highly underrepresented in the scholarship world," writes Sarah Haider on Substack. More:

In fact, it is the only demographic where the majority receives many more exclusive scholarship opportunities than the minority. According to a study by the SAVE Title IX Equity Project analyzing scholarships exclusive to one sex in 115 universities, "among 1,161 sex-specific scholarships, 91.6% were reserved for female students, with only 8.4% designated for male students."

Not surprising, exactly. Perhaps a bit more surprising: Despite a lot of crowing about how few men go into female dominated fields, as far as I could find, there is little money offered to encourage them. Women who wish to "break barriers" in STEM can look forward to diving into a mountain of money, but men who wish to do the same in a profession like Speech-Language Pathology (90%+ female) can look forward to nothing of the sort.

Read the whole thing here.

FREE MARKETS

Meta is in trouble with E.U. regulators. Facebook's parent company, Meta, was fined $414 million by the European Union (E.U.) for giving users no choice but to see personalized ads. The E.U. says that in collecting user data for personalized advertising, Meta violated the E.U.'s landmark data privacy law, which took effect in 2018. More from The New York Times:

The case hinges on how Meta receives legal permission from users to collect their data for personalized advertising. The company's terms-of-service agreement — the very lengthy statement that users must accept to gain access to services like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — includes language that effectively means users must either allow their data to be used for personalized ads or stop using Meta's social media services altogether.

Ireland's data privacy board, which serves as Meta's main regulator in the European Union because the company's European headquarters are in Dublin, said E.U. authorities had determined that placing the legal consent within the terms of service essentially forced users to accept personalized ads, violating the European law known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or G.D.P.R.

Meta has three months to outline how it will comply with the ruling. The decision does not specify what the company must do, but it could result in Meta's allowing users to choose whether they want their data used for such targeted promotions.

If a large number of users choose not to share their data, it would cut off one of the most valuable parts of Meta's business.

QUICK HITS

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• Reason's Christian Britschgi tears into new lawmakers who say they can't afford D.C. rents on their salaries of $174,000 per year.