Moral panic laws have popped up across the United States in the 2025 legislative season. Recently, North Dakota joined the growing league of states requiring age verification for porn. But critics warn that North Dakota’s regulations, which won’t go into effect until August 1, are another shining example of First Amendment violations.
Last month, North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong (R) signed Senate Bill 2380 and House Bill 1561 which both introduced age verification requirements for websites containing a “substantial portion” of “sexual material harmful to a minor on the internet”. These sites must use “reasonable” methods, like a digitized identification card or having someone submit a government-issued ID. If a website fails to comply with age verification or deletes data, it can be held liable for damages.
What counts as porn is wide under the new regulations. Obviously, actual depictions of sexual intercourse, masturbation, etc, are covered. However, the bill also extends to simulated or animated acts, and it includes depiction of pubic hair, genitals, and the nipple of a female breast, specifically. Beyond that, North Dakota’s legislation is aimed at material that “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” and that which the “average individual applying contemporary community standards” would consider as appealing to the “prurient interest”.
According to the Age Verification Providers Association, over twenty states have passed age verification laws to access pornography. Recently, a woman from Kansas used her state’s law to sue multiple porn websites after her teenage son watched porn on her old laptop. Of North Dakota’s regulations, Rep. Steve Swiontek (R), chief sponsor of HB 1561, said, “The thought was there should be some requirement and expectations that these adult’ entertainment sites who are getting paid for this…that they should be mandated and required to verify age. I think we have a moral obligation for these kids.”
Per the North Dakota Monitor, Swiontek noted that the state’s laws are modeled after legislation that Utah passed in 2023. In addition, legislators passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 4017, which requests that the Legislative Management Committee “consider studying the detrimental impacts of pornography.”
The version of SB 2380 and HB 1561 that North Dakota’s legislators passed is toned down from its introduction. Originally, the bill required “covered manufacturers” (which included device manufacturers and app stores) to “determine or estimate the age of the primary user upon activation of a device”. At the time, Rose Feliciano, executive director of TechNet, said that the bill’s requirements were “vague, cumbersome, and ineffective.”
The toned down regulations still raise significant First Amendment concerns, though. As NetChoice’s director of state and federal affairs, Amy Bos, wrote, “While states may (and should) protect minors, states lack, as Justice Scalia memorably put it, ‘a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.’” She added that age verification places barriers on “constitutionally protected speech” that “cannot survive judicial review.”
Per Bos, laws in California, Utah, Ohio, Arkansas, and Mississippi “have recently failed to withstand legal scrutiny.” In addition, Texas’ HB 1181, which is similar to North Dakota’s new regulations, is now at the center of a Supreme Court case. Bos warned, “Implementing such a measure in North Dakota would likely meet the same fate and lead to costly legal challenges without providing any real benefit to the state’s residents.”
Age verification bills are also a privacy nightmare. Although North Dakota’s regulation requires all data collected for age verification to be deleted, companies often hold onto data they shouldn’t, and age verification companies still get hacked.
Besides, age verification generally isn’t effective at blocking access to content. But as the Electronic Frontier Foundation tracked, these laws have spiraled far beyond “protecting minors from porn”. For example, states have introduced age verification requirements for skincare, dating apps, and diet pills. EFF cautioned, “While the intent to protect children makes sense, the unintended consequence is a massive erosion of privacy, security, and free expression online for everyone.”
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