8 States Considering Bills That Could Force Device Makers to Block Porn

Proposed measures in eight states are targeting pornography by requiring phone and tablet manufacturers to include filters that would automatically censor any nude or sexually explicit content. 

NBC News reports the bills to say the phone filters must prevent children from downloading sexually explicit content via mobile data networks, applications owned and controlled by the manufacturer, and wired or wireless internet networks.

Under the states' bills, passcodes would be required to disable the filters. Adults would be prohibited from giving a passcode to a child unless it is done by a parent. 

Several manufacturers have adult content filters already in place, but they are not automatically turned on when the device is powered up. Many phone makers, for instance, allow parents to easily enable filters on web browsers that prevent children from navigating to websites known to host pornography. Some phone companies even have filters in place that use artificial intelligence to censor some images on the device's applications, according to NBC News.  

Utah passed an anti-pornography bill in 2021, but the measure cannot go into effect unless five additional states pass similar laws. It was a provision written into the law to prevent manufacturers from retaliating against the state after the law was passed. This year, Florida, South Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee, Iowa, Idaho, Texas, and Montana lawmakers are all considering versions of the bill. 

Representatives from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and Protect Young Eyes reportedly contributed to the legislation. Both advocacy organizations told NBC News the intent of the original bill was to compel device manufacturers to automatically turn on adult filters for web browsers and not other applications.

Those filters were on phones when the legislation was first drafted, but the filters were not automatically powered on, they said. 

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Chris McKenna, founder, and CEO of Protect Young Eyes said the legislation could also end up applying to other device-level filters created in recent years that some might consider more invasive.

Two years ago, Apple included filters on its iPhones that scan messages for nudity and blur any potential nude image for phones that have the filter turned on. The filter can also be set up for children. 

Most of the proposed states' measures would make device manufacturers criminally and civilly liable if their filters don't automatically meet "industry standards."  But they don't specifically spell out what the standards are or if messaging filters are also covered under the legislation. 

McKenna told NBC "the intention is meant to point toward the browsers and the {search} engines that have the filters already in place." But, he noted, "you wouldn't find me upset if they chose to turn that on for iMessage."

Samir Jain, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, argued the bills bring up concerns about user privacy. Some speculate that manufacturers could be forced to collect age data from customers, via government ID and other forms of identification.

"There are no restrictions as such on how providers can then use this data for other purposes. So even the sort of age verification aspect of this, I think, both creates burdens and gives rise to privacy concerns," Jain said.

In the case of children using the devices, filters should be deliberately tuned and applied by parents themselves, he told the outlet.