Two new Mississippi laws are designed to protect kids from easy access to porn

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) -We all know that the world wide web opens up a world of good and bad. And if you have kids, you might wonder how to protect them. Two new laws here in Mississippi are aimed at putting up a roadblock between kids and porn.

One search, one click of the mouse, and images you would hope would be off limits to your kids could be right on their screen. Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd is hoping that will now change.

“I was approached by a number of individuals last year, probably about this time, that were concerned about the exposure that children have to pornography, a number of psychologists, a number of parents, and quite frankly, a number of individuals who had had porn addiction in there, and they got addicted as a child,” explained Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd.

Senate Bill 2346 became law on July 1 and requires porn sites to go beyond just asking to check a box to verify the person behind the screen is over 18.

“The sad thing about this is the average age of exposure in the U.S. is around 12 years of age,” noted Boyd. “Exposure to pornography for children leads to increased violence, mental health issues, addiction issues, and risky sexual behavior. So we need to do something to limit their exposure.”

Rep. Lee Yancey filed a similar age verification bill, but through the course of the session, House Bill 1315 was changed to be more specific, blocking such sites from K-12 school computers.

“A lot of parents have the fear that the kids are going to access something inappropriate,” noted Rep. Lee Yancey. “And these days, who defines what inappropriate is? And so we felt like there needed to be a law just to kind of draw the line in the sand and say, we’re going to protect our kids from this online pornography and other things that that it’s not age appropriate.”

The website PornHub posted an announcement that it will be fully blocking its site in Mississippi, saying this is how they’ve chosen to comply with the law.

Utah, Louisiana, and Arkansas have passed similar bills. And an adult entertainment group is suing over the law in Louisiana.

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