Ohio Could Be The Next State To Protect Kids Online, Unless The Porn Industry Gets Its Way
Ohio could become the next state to protect children from obscene content online if legislation introduced last month becomes law.
“We’re just trying to protect kids who are in the state of Ohio from adult content and the prevalence of obscene material in our society,” Republican state Rep. Josh Williams told The Federalist. “The idea is to make sure that parents have a voice in the room when it comes down to what their children are exposed to on a daily basis.”
House Bill 84, or the Innocence Act, would compel platforms to verify users are age 18 or older before providing “material that is obscene or harmful to juveniles.” The law would also “prohibit a person from using another person’s likeness to create sexual images of the other person.” Williams and Republican state Rep. Steve Demetriou introduced the bill, which is cosponsored by 25 Republicans and three Democrats, last month.
But the bill has found a powerful enemy. The so-called Free Speech Coalition, the “trade association for the adult industry” whose board is composed of porn executives, has targeted this measure. The FSC Action Center features a page tracking the bill among others it opposes.
Demetriou introduced a similar bill — which Williams cosponsored — by the same name in 2023, which ultimately stalled according to NBC 4. The FSC also opposed this effort, Williams told The Federalist.
“They came in last time and gave testimony,” Williams said. “It was a letter, I think, that got sent around.”
Still, the new bill is making progress. It currently sits in the Committee on Technology and Innovation, which last held a hearing on March 18. The bill sponsors testified alongside several proponents.
“For distributors who fail to comply, the penalty is a first-degree misdemeanor. Importantly, minors attempting to access such content will not face penalties,” Demetriou testified. “The bill also tackles the rising crisis of nonconsensual fabricated sexual images, commonly known as deepfake pornography.”
Kirsti Mouncey, president of the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking, called the bill “a vital step toward modernizing our legal protections, holding perpetrators accountable, and protecting Ohioans from digital exploitation that may result in trafficking.”
Mouncey shared the story of a human trafficking survivor identified only as “Taylor.”
“My exploitation was made available to the global public, for free, downloadable, and with no meaningful or effective restriction. … To this day, 10 years later there are still numerous videos of me uploaded to over 100 explicit websites,” reads a statement from Taylor, conveyed by Mouncey. “Age verification of explicit content is one step forward to protecting those most vulnerable. … The stories of countless survivors and the discovery found in 25 lawsuits have revealed the truth behind platforms like Pornhub and its parent company Mindgeek/Aylo.”
PornHub has admitted to profiting from sex trafficking. And, as The Federalist reported, parent company Aylo funded a group that opposed the “Kids Online Safety Act,” which would have required online platforms to protect minors from “sexual exploitation and abuse.” Aylo developed “relationships” with the FSC, the group targeting the Ohio bill.
Taylor, via Mouncey, expressed concern that children could access “countless other criminal abuse videos and child sexual abuse material” on porn sites. She also called for age verification of those depicted in videos.
The porn industry has won court rulings that make it difficult to verify the age of those depicted in obscene videos — essentially, “unless you can prove that it’s actually a minor, it’s not unlawful to be online,” Williams said. In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court struck down bans on content that “‘appears to be’ or ‘conveys the impression’ of” child porn.
“We’ve been fighting this stuff for a while,” Williams said.
Louisiana passed legislation to protect kids from obscene content online in 2022, requiring porn platforms to verify users are age 18 and up. The FSC opposed the law, along with others that followed suit. According to The Daily Citizen (of Focus On The Family), 20 states have already passed age verification laws to protect children, and 16 more are considering them.
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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