One mother in Kansas has taken the battle to protect her child online to court after discovering that her 14-year-old son was using her old laptop to access porn sites. The suit alleges that the age verification process that is supposed to protect minors from seeing porn isn’t strict enough. The State of Kansas has some of the strictest laws in the country when it comes to age verification for adults-only web sites, but this lawsuit is proving to be a test case for states that have been pushing for higher standards and an even more strict process in order to pass verification and access protected content. However, critics of the age verification process argue that making the verification process even more strict opens a door for censorship and infringement of First Amendment rights to free speech.

The mother and son (referred to as Jane Doe and Q.R.) reside in Olathe, Kansas, and have filed suits against four separate adult websites. Chaturbate.com, Jerkmate.com, Techpup Solutions’ Superporn.com, and Titan Websites’ Hentai City are all being sued due to insufficient age verification that led to Q.R. being able to access adult content more than 118 times over a period of 2 months. Jane Doe made efforts to monitor his devices to ensure that he was being safe online, but he was still able to access the content without her knowledge, leading to her alleging that the websites violated the law in Kansas by failing to implement adequate age verification measures. An anti-pornography group, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has taken on the role of co-counsel in the lawsuit, assisting in Jane Doe’s assertion that her child suffered “pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement, and mental anguish” because of the content he was able to access that wasn’t intended for his eyes. Chaturbate’s parent company, Multi Media LLC, claims that it is in compliance with Kansas law, and has called the lawsuit “baseless,” stating that their age gate does prevent access to explicit content when minors try to access the site.

The Kansas law that went into effect on July 1, 2024, requires that all websites that have 25% or more content that could be seen as “harmful to minors” must verify the ages of any would-be users prior to allowing them access to the content on the site. Per the Kansas statute, explicit sexual content that features masturbation, homosexuality, or sexual intercourse would fall under that umbrella. The penalties for violating the law include up to $10,000 per violation, and there is even a provision in the law that states that the parents of affected children can sue for damages of at least $50,000. Kansas is a unique state in this. Their law is currently amongst the strictest in the United States, and applies to sites where adult content might be only ¼ of the total content on the site. This has the potential to affect platforms like X, where content creators for sites like OnlyFans are allowed to share teaser content in order to draw potential subscribers to their pages.

Currently, there are over 20 states in the US that have either already enacted age verification laws for adult websites, or intend to do so in the near future. Kansas, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and others are all in the group of states that have laws in place requiring age verification, with several additional states considering similar laws. Exact numbers are hard to determine, due to ongoing legislative sessions, but since 2022 nearly ⅓ of the United States has adopted stricter legal parameters around age verification for adults-only sites. There is some variation from state to state, with some states requiring a government ID or facial recognition. That precedent was set by a law implemented in Louisiana in 2023, which subsequently led to a significant dip in traffic for sites like Pornhub.

Critics of the strict age verification parameters have raised concerns that the tightening of regulations around age verification could cause a slippery slope that results in censorship and the violation of free speech. Groups like the Free Speech Coalition argue that age verification laws introduce the risk of privacy violation in the name of data collection, with increased concerns over data breaches. There are also concerns that the vague definitions of “harmful to minors” opens the door to targeting non-pornographic content— including LGBTQIA+-related material— which increases the risk of over-censorship. The lawsuit in Kansas isn’t the only case throwing this particular issue into the spotlight. There is an ongoing case in the U.S. Supreme Court, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, that is examining whether or not Texas’ age verification laws are a violation of the U.S. Constitution, and it is expected that the outcome of that case could impact the laws in Kansas.

Privacy for users isn’t the only concern. Stricter age verification laws have the potential to push users away from regulated porn sites, and towards unregulated platforms, or the dark web. If the laws are indeed applied to sites with minimal adult content, broader censorship could result in the stifling of free expression. Still, groups like NCOSE argue that age verification is essential in order to protect minors from developmental harm, as is claimed in the lawsuit in Kansas.

The Kansas lawsuit is not only a test of new age verification laws. It also represents the tension between protections for minors as well as freedom of expression for adults. The national trend towards stricter online regulations alongside the upcoming SCOTUS ruling have the potential to significantly change who accesses online pornography and how.