{"id":2642531,"date":"2026-08-10T08:06:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsmut-industry-terrified-of-bill-to-keep-kids-from-their-sick-products\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T08:13:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:13:04","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsmut-industry-terrified-of-bill-to-keep-kids-from-their-sick-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsmut-industry-terrified-of-bill-to-keep-kids-from-their-sick-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Smut Industry Terrified Of Bill To Keep Kids From Their Products"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsmut-industry-terrified-of-bill-to-keep-kids-from-their-sick-products%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2642531&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The SCREEN Act, championed by Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, aims to require online porn companies to verify users are adults before granting access, building on the support of 81% of Americans and similar laws in 27 states. This legislation addresses the rising issue of childhood exposure to pornography, which typically begins at age 12, with 80% of kids aged 12-17 having encountered explicit content. Experts highlight numerous harms from early porn exposure, prompting lawmakers to take preventive measures. <\/p>\n<p>Pornhub and other major adult sites oppose the bill,raising concerns about data privacy and regulation,but proponents counter that the law woudl actually enhance privacy by preventing data retention and exposing industry data collection practices.Critics argue that Pornhub blames parents or device makers for underage access, but the core issue remains the industry\u2019s failure to prevent minors from viewing explicit material. The bill advocates for stronger penalties against illegal distribution, with examples from Texas demonstrating that strict enforcement can effectively diminish black market pornography. the legislation aims to protect children from the profound harms of early exposure to pornography, which the industry seeks to preserve for profit, viewing children\u2019s innocence as collateral.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee\u2019s SCREEN Act would strip Big Porn of a critical revenue stream: kids.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/1623\/text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Shielding Children\u2019s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net<\/a> (SCREEN) Act just passed the House of Representatives and is sitting in the Senate right now. Lee\u2019s bill would require every online porn company to verify users are adults before they can access any adult website. This is exactly what voters want. A recent poll found that <a href=\"https:\/\/act.americanprinciplesproject.org\/p\/protect-kids-online\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">81 percent<\/a> of Americans support a federal age verification law to protect minors from accessing pornographic content online. Additionally, 27 states have passed similar age verification legislation.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for the recent momentum is simple: childhood exposure to pornography has become a nationwide crisis. Today, the average child first encounters porn <a href=\"https:\/\/acpeds.org\/the-impact-of-pornography-on-children\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">at age 12<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/senate-bill\/737\/text#ided95fd046571415fac237a813c69fa55\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">80 percent<\/a> of kids aged 12-17 have been exposed to some level of sexually explicit content. Given the <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC12515835\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">numerous documented harms<\/a> of porn use \u2014 addiction, mental disorders, normalization of sexual violence, etc. \u2014 it makes sense that lawmakers are taking steps to shield our most vulnerable from it.<\/p>\n<p>Pornhub, a major online porn distributor, is in full panic mode. The legislative stakes could not be higher. It knows the noose is tightening and that is what prompted its <a href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/life\/pornhub-letter-to-us-lawmakers-about-age-verification\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">desperate plea<\/a> to politicians across the country.<\/p>\n<p>In its letter, Pornhub raised three main concerns, each of which has an obvious rebuttal. <\/p>\n<p>First, Pornhub begged lawmakers to shift age verification from the organizations that actually profit when children are addicted to porn to device manufacturers. Essentially, Pornhub poisoned the digital reservoir and is now blaming the hose when children drink water. Your cell phone or internet service provider should not be on the hook because Pornhub is a predatory child-targeting organization. Pornhub is on the hook. It created the path from your child\u2019s phone straight to the darkest pits of sexual obscenity. The burden is theirs.<\/p>\n<p>The second rhetorical trick Big Porn uses is to blame parents. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/press-release\/story\/58277\/school-issued-devices-are-the-1-way-kids-bypass-parental-controls-new-research-finds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Studies<\/a> have shown what common sense has always told us: filters and blockers are easily bypassed by tech savvy teens. Pornhub poisons the reservoir and then has the audacity to say that parents must pay in treasure and time and vigilance. If your child drinks the water, they say, it is your fault alone.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the voyeurs who exploit the most intimate of acts for profit, who then sell that data to the highest bidder, are now acting as stewards of the First Amendment and privacy. In its letter, Pornhub went into a fearmongering tirade over the possibility of data leaks.\u00a0This is pure political theater. The SCREEN Act mandates that all data gathered to verify the age of users cannot be retained beyond the verification process itself. <\/p>\n<p>Moreover, seeing as porn sites already have some of the <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/1407235\/porn-sites-collect-more-user-data-than-netflix-or-hulu-this-is-what-they-do-with-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">most sophisticated data collection programs<\/a> in the web industry \u2014 programs which right now are almost completely unregulated \u2014 the SCREEN Act actually increases privacy. A <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/1461444820924632\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2020 study<\/a> found 93 percent of pornography websites already leak user data to third-party companies like Google, even if users surf in an incognito browser. Porn users should already be aware that their personal data is unsafe.<\/p>\n<p>Pornhub raised concerns that this legislation might create an increased demand for black market porn. This is not an argument against age verification. This is an argument for stronger age verification laws and steeper penalties for those who would flout the law to peddle smut to kids. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has proven that <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bloomberglaw.com\/litigation\/paxton-porn-industry-takedown-in-texas-attracts-other-gop-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">strict legal penalties<\/a> are excellent deterrents to predatory porn companies. Paxton\u2019s unrelenting approach has led him to <a href=\"https:\/\/texasscorecard.com\/state\/texas-ag-freezes-foreign-porn-sites-domain-for-ignoring-age-verification-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">strip noncompliant sites<\/a> of their domain names and chase them out of the state. Consequently, domestic \u201cblack market\u201d porn has a hard time forming \u2014 much less thriving \u2014 in the state. <\/p>\n<p>No generation in history has ever been subjected to this level of sustained targeted debauchery. The pornography industry views your kids as future customers and their innocence as necessary collateral. This letter is a last gasp from a sick organization that knows if it loses access to children, it loses everything. If they signed off \u201cYour affectionate Uncle Screwtape,\u201d it would be no less fitting.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Terry Schilling is the president of American Principles Project PAC. Follow him on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Schilling1776\">@Schilling1776<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Mike Lee\u2019s SCREEN Act aims to block kids from online porn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":891,"featured_media":2642532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pexels-storybyphil-9320535-scaled-e1785934313225.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[6371,4762,83908],"class_list":["post-2642531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-censorship","tag-legislation","tag-smut-industry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pexels-storybyphil-9320535-scaled-e1785934313225.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/891"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2642531"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2642535,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642531\/revisions\/2642535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2642532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2642531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2642531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2642531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}