SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Department of Commerce will begin cracking down on adult content websites, demanding they take measures to ensure age-verification.
"We will be requiring any porn website to verify the age of its user. And if the age is 18 or older? They can continue," said Commerce Commissioner Margaret Woolley Busse. "If they’re younger? They cannot continue."
The enforcement, which will begin Nov. 2, is the culmination of a law the Utah State Legislature passed earlier this year demanding age-verification. A portion of that law, which went after pornographic websites even if someone used a VPN to get around Utah's age-verification demands, was struck down by a federal judge.
Utah is now pursuing enforcement on the parts of the law that remain. Commissioner Busse told FOX 13 News her agency will deploy new technologies that will examine websites where more than a third of its content is pornographic in nature and it advertises itself as an adult site. It will determine if they're truly carrying out age-verification — where someone's identity is determined to have them above the legal age — instead of merely having a button on their site where someone can claim they're over 18 and view the content anyway.
"We’ll just be looking at sites that would be covered under this law and if they’re not age-verifying, we can go after them," Commissioner Busse said.
The law may not apply to social media sites, where adult content can often be found. A pornographic website found to be in violation could face fines.
"Every single violation can be up to $2,500. If you’re looking at thousands of violations? Those add up quickly," Commissioner Busse said. "We can take them to court, we can file injunctive relief."
The law's sponsor, Sen. Calvin Musselman, R-West Haven, told FOX 13 News on Friday he was glad to see enforcement begin.
"This is what we want to see happen. What we really want to see happen is for all of these websites to simply age verify," he said.
The law also requires adult content websites to pay a tax that has been earmarked for youth mental health. That will also begin to be enforced by the Utah State Tax Commission. Sen. Musselman said the intent of his legislation is to protect children whom he said can be harmed by pornography that they find online, despite even the best efforts by parents.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld age-verification laws in other states, bolstering Utah's ability for enforcement.
In protest of the Utah State Legislature's anti-porn laws, some popular websites like Pornhub and RedTube have actively blocked Utah IP addresses. People who visit those sites are greeted by a screen and a video that argues Utah laws don't do what they're intended to and urges people to contact lawmakers and demand changes to the law that protect minors and safeguard an adult's right to access legal, pornographic content.
"We don't want minors on our sites, either. But your laws, the way that they're written, haven't been particularly effective. We think there are better solutions," said Mike Stabile, the policy director for the Free Speech Coalition, a group that represents the adult entertainment industry.
The Free Speech Coalition said it has instructed its member sites to comply with the provisions of the law that weren't struck down by a federal judge. Stabile argued that most have complied and have been doing some age-verification since 2023. But he argued for other mechanisms to enforce age-verification, such as tying it to the device instead of leaving it on the site.
"Less than 5% of people are willing to go through that process, right? People don't want to scan their face and put in an ID to access content that might be controversial or that they might want private," Stabile told FOX 13 News. "What we've seen over the past couple of years, it's just this huge shift in traffic away from legitimate, reputable sites to pirate sites, to sites outside the U.S. that are not...age verifying, but they're also maybe not taking down revenge porn. They're maybe not taking down illegal content. This has been a massive failure the way that it's been done and I think that if they want to accomplish this goal, we're happy to work with them."
Sen. Musselman said he is willing to consider the Free Speech Coalition's input as he works on a revision of the law to address the federal judge's concerns on VPN use. He acknowledged to FOX 13 News it might be difficult to block VPN use.
"That might be the idea, but that might not be achievable. We’ll see as we go forward. We’ll need to have research done to see where it goes," he said.
Sen. Musselman said he ultimately wants the law enforced to keep children from accessing adult content websites.
"Anybody in the state of Utah that are accessing it? We believe there should be age-verification to do so," he said.