California Family Council (CFC) expresses profound disappointment with the California Senate Judiciary Committee’s proposed amendments to AB 3080. Originally designed to protect children from exposure to online pornography through mandatory age verification, the bill’s effectiveness has been severely undermined by the Committee’s changes.
AB 3080, which passed the California Assembly unanimously, aimed to require websites publishing pornography to implement industry-standard age verification measures. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s amendments have transformed these requirements into a mere option, effectively maintaining the status quo.
According to the bill analysis, the required bill amendments allow pornographic websites to fulfill their obligation to take “reasonable steps” to prevent minors from viewing its content if they:
“include metadata or response headers identifying the product as sexually explicit to parental control software, embedded hardware applications, and other similar services designed to block, filter, monitor or otherwise prevent a minor’s access to inappropriate online content, or that blocks users designated as minors by the operating system of the device used to access the website.”
The problem is that most pornographic websites already adhere to these provisions on a voluntary basis.
“The amendments proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee have gutted AB 3080, rendering it ineffective. By making age verification optional, the Committee has bowed to the demands of the pornographic industry rather than protecting our children.
Iain Corby, Executive Director of the Age Verification Providers Association, highlights the critical flaws introduced by the amendments:
“We withdraw our support from AB 3080 as amended. The bill, in its current form, merely enshrines the inadequate voluntary practices of the pornographic industry into law. This amendment does nothing to protect children from pornography and, in fact, legitimizes the ineffective status quo.”
Joseph Kohm, Family Policy Alliance’s Director Of Public Policy, remarked:
“The proposed amendments to AB 3080 would ensure California children continue to be ravaged by internet pornography, while keeping their parents in the dark. Protecting kids online is a bipartisan objective, and the Assembly proved it by passing an effective version of A.B. 3080 unanimously. The Senate Judiciary Committee must reject these proposed amendments and pass the bill that the Assembly unanimously endorsed. Anything else would be a victory for the pornography industry over children and families.”
“A law to protect California’s children and youth from hardcore, violent and often exploitative pornography is urgently needed. The currently proposed amendments fully water down AB 3080 and make a detrimental edit that enables porn sites to wriggle out of their responsibility to protect children from their content.”
The amendments allow websites to simply label their content as restricted and rely on device operating systems and filtering software to block access. As Corby points out, “The result of this amendment is that the porn sites need to do nothing different from today, and when the Bill comes into force, absolutely nothing will change.”
California Family Council urges the Senate Judiciary Committee to reconsider these amendments and restore the original, effective measures of AB 3080. Protecting our children from the dangers of online pornography must be a top priority, and we call on all concerned citizens to join us in advocating for stronger protections.
Call to Action
Call the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Tom Umberg, asking him not to require the removal of age verification requirements from AB 3080 for pornographic websites.
Capitol office: (916) 651-4034
District Office: (714) 558-3785
