Men “gang-raping” women, kids under age 12 exposed to vile sexual encounters, teens addicted to porn sites.
Those were the subjects raised Monday afternoon at a Trenton hearing organized by Assembly Republicans to support bills to prevent those under 18 from accessing pornography online.
Like so much having to do with the Internet, controls are not easy.
As was noted, google “porn” and the first site that pops up is Pornhub, which advertises “free porn videos and sex movies”
None of this is what some baby boomers may have seen years ago when one had to visit a movie theater to see X-rated films.
And that is the problem.
A number of speakers spoke of young people – pre-teens in some cases – being exposed to sexual violence and other depravity. They argued that this certainly can impact their views toward women and sex as they move through adolescence and into young adulthood.
As stated, Republicans organized the hearing, which was chaired by Assemblyman Jay Webber of Morris County. But there was a bipartisan flavor. One of the attendees was Assemblywoman Tennille McCoy, a Democrat from Mercer County.
Two related bills have been introduced in the Legislature.
Both aim to prevent minors from accessing porn through the use of digital blocking equipment.
But how can that be done?
Enter Iain Corby, the executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association.
Corby said preventing kids from seeing porn online is quite doable, comparing it to a bartender checking IDs.
He said computer software can view a user’s ID card and read the date of birth and ascertain the age of the potential user. Corby said the computer would read only the date of birth and not any other identifiable information like name and address. Those under 18 would be denied access.
With many states passing, or considering, such protection, some critics have raised privacy concerns.
Some of Corby’s other methods seemed a bit less convincing.
He spoke of visual technology using AI to determine a person’s age by how they look, what their voice sounds like or even how they move their hand.
Corby acknowledged such techniques are not going to be 100 percent effective 100 percent of the time.
But he stressed that visual technology would be easily able to determine if a potential user was, say, 35, or 14. A speaker’s voice patterns also could show evidence of age – broadly speaking.
Other than Webber and McCoy, others at the hearing were Republicans Aura Dunn, Mike Inganamort, Victoria Flynn and Gerry Scharfenberger.
When it ended, Webber made the point that protecting kids from violent porn should be a no-brainer.
He said the problem impacts all kids – no matter if they’re straight or gay.
“There’s no regard to race or ethnicity,” he added. “Pornography affects every corner of our country, our state, even the world.”
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