Whoops—Ohio Accidentally Excludes Most Major Porn Platforms From Anti-Porn Law
Ohio lawmakers set out to block minors from viewing online porn. They messed up.
Remember when people used to say "Epic FAIL"? I'm sorry, but there's no other way to describe Ohio's new age verification law, which took effect on September 30.
A variation on a mandate that's been sweeping U.S. statehouses, this law requires online platforms offering "material harmful to juveniles"—by which authorities mean porn—to check photo IDs or use "transactional data" (such as mortgage, education, and employment records) to verify that all visitors are adults.
But lawmakers have written the law in such a way that it excludes most major porn publishing platforms.
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"This is why you don't rush [age verification] bills into an omnibus," commented the Free Speech Coalition's Mike Stabile on Bluesky.
Ohio Republican lawmakers introduced a standalone age verification bill back in February, but it languished in a House committee. A similar bill introduced in 2024 also failed to advance out of committee.
The version that wound up passing this year did so as part of the state's omnibus budget legislation (House Bill 96). This massive measure—more than 3,000 pages—includes a provision that any organization that "disseminates, provides, exhibits, or presents any material or performance that is obscene or harmful to juveniles on the internet" must verify that anyone attempting to view that material is at least 18 years old.
The bill also states that such organizations must "utilize a geofence system maintained and monitored by a licensed location-based technology provider to dynamically monitor the geolocation of persons."
Existing Ohio law defines material harmful to juveniles as "any material or performance describing or representing nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse" that "appeals to the prurient interest of juveniles in sex," is "patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for juveniles," and "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value for juveniles."
Under the new law, online distributors of "material harmful to juveniles" that don't comply with the age check requirement could face civil actions initiated by Ohio's attorney general.
Supporters of the law portrayed it as a way to stop young Ohioans from being able to access online porn entirely. But the biggest purveyors of online porn—including Pornhub and similar platforms, which allow users to upload as well as view content—seem to be exempt from the law.
Among the organizations exempted from age verification requirements are providers of "an interactive computer service," which is defined by Ohio lawmakers as having the same meaning as it does under federal law.
The federal law that defines "interactive computer service"—Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—says it "means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions."
That's a bit of a mouthful, but we have decades of jurisprudence parsing that definition. And it basically means any platform where third parties can create accounts and can generate content, from social media sites to dating apps, message boards, classified ads, search engines, comment sections, and much more.
Platforms like Pornhub unambiguously fall within this category.
In fact, Pornhub is not blocking Ohio users as it has in most other states with age verification laws for online porn, because its parent company, Aylo, does not believe the law applies to it.
"As a provider of an 'interactive computer service' as defined under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, it is our understanding that we are not subject to the obligations under section 1349.10 of the Ohio Revised Code regarding mandated age verification for the 'interactive computer services' we provide, such as Pornhub," Aylo told Mashable.
I'm assuming that the exclusion of Pornhub was not intentional, given the way this law's supporters talked about it as a shield against Ohio minors being able to see any sexually oriented material online. One of the law's biggest proponents, state Rep. Josh Williams (R–Sylvania), has talked about how it would not ensnare social media platforms even though they may contain porn, so perhaps the exclusion of interactive computer services was intended for that purpose. But most major web-porn access points, including OnlyFans and webcamming platforms, also fall under the definition of interactive computer service.
I doubt this will be the end of the story. Perhaps Ohio lawmakers will amend the exceptions—although that may prove a bit difficult to do on its own, since the state was having trouble moving forward with a standalone age verification law. Or perhaps the Ohio Attorney General will be foolish enough to challenge the idea that Pornhub is an "interactive computer service."
For now, though, we can add this to ever-crowded annals of "lawmakers trying to regulate tech and the internet without understanding tech and the internet."
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