The past couple of weeks have seen some excellent developments on the issue of age verification for online pornography in both Australia and the US, which align with a wider global movement to protect children from the unregulated online pornography industry and to hold companies accountable for the content they host and promote online.
US Supreme Court Upholds Age Verification Law for Porn Sites
This week, the US Supreme Court upheld a Texas law requiring pornographic websites to verify the age of their users. This is a monumental win for child safeguarding and an overdue recognition that children’s rights to safety and protection online must come before the convenience or anonymity of adult porn consumers.
The Texas law – House Bill 1181 – mandates that sites hosting more than one-third sexually explicit material must implement meaningful age-verification tools such as government-issued ID or third-party authentication. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court found that such requirements are constitutional and do not violate the free speech rights of adults, meaning that similar laws around the country are valid and can continue to be implemented in other states. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion, while adults may have a right to access explicit content, they have no right to do so without first submitting proof of age, at the potential expense of children's welfare.
This common-sense position aligns with what child protection advocates have been saying for years: if we require age checks for entering an adult store, purchasing alcohol, or obtaining a driver’s licence, why would we not require them for the vast, unregulated world of online pornography?
Encouraging Developments in Australia
Australia is also making progress. While the federal government has been slow to act on longstanding recommendations for mandatory age verification for online pornography, there have been significant recent developments:
-
Preliminary findings last month from Australia’s Age Assurance Technology Trial have shown that "age assurance can be done in Australia privately, robustly and effectively in alignment with the international standards used during the Trial and with no significant technological barriers to implementation."
-
In a major regulatory update this week, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has approved three new industry codes to protect children from pornography and other age-inappropriate content. The codes cover hosting services, internet carriage services and search engines, and will require companies like Google to implement age verification measures within the next six months, which "must filter out online pornography and high-impact violence material detected in search results" for an account holder its age assurance systems indicate is likely to be an Australian child. The search engine code is particularly significant, as search engines are often the gateway to the internet.
- New laws will soon raise the minimum age for social media accounts to 16. The social media restrictions have proved particularly controversial, but the reality is, sexually explicit and pornographic content is rife on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X, which are funnelling users – including children – to OnlyFans accounts and other pornographic platforms.
Developments like these are a promising and long-overdue response to the mounting evidence that children are being targeted and harmed by online pornography and exploitative content. However, Australia is still lagging behind places like the UK, which has already committed to strong, mandatory age verification measures for all websites containing pornographic content. We urge the Federal Government to move decisively and swiftly to do the same. Children cannot consent to pornography. They cannot ‘unsee’ what they have seen. And they should not be the collateral damage of adult inaction, Big Tech’s bottom line, or misguided notions of ‘freedom’.
The Reality Facing Children Today
Pornography is no longer something children ‘might stumble upon’. It is aggressively marketed, algorithmically suggested, and shockingly accessible. Research shows the average age of first exposure to pornography is between 9 and 11, with many children exposed to violent and degrading material long before they have the maturity or framework to understand it.
The long-term harms are well-documented: distorted views of sex, increased tolerance for violence against women, compulsive consumption, and diminished capacity for real, respectful relationships.
If we are serious about protecting children from sexual exploitation and grooming, we must treat online porn the way we would any other adult-only product, with strict access controls.
But What About Adult Rights?
Opponents of age verification argue that such laws infringe on adult privacy or could lead to data breaches. These concerns are not insignificant, but they are not insurmountable, and they pale in comparison to the proven harms to children.
First, robust privacy-preserving technology already exists. Countries like France and the UK have explored or implemented digital age-verification systems that do not store user data. Just as banks, voting systems, and healthcare providers manage sensitive data securely every day, so too can pornographic platforms be required to meet basic data protection standards.
Second, and more fundamentally, privacy does not mean unfettered access to anything, anytime, without accountability. In every other domain privacy is balanced with regulation. Online pornography should be no exception.
Opponents of age verification also raise concerns about free speech and censorship, warning of a 'slippery slope' where governments begin policing lawful adult content. Some fear that such laws could stifle expression, or that age verification is a tool that could be used by authoritarian regimes to control access to information. These are not trivial concerns in a democratic society. Free expression is a vital principle, and censorship, particularly when politically motivated, must always be vigilantly guarded against.
However, requiring age verification for pornographic websites is not censorship. It does not outlaw or restrict the creation or legal distribution of adult content, it simply requires that children be kept out. This is no different, in principle, from the classification systems that regulate R-rated films, or the requirement to show ID when purchasing alcohol, tobacco, or entering adult venues.
Moreover, freedom speech is not absolute, especially when it places children at risk. We already place reasonable limits on speech when it involves defamation, incitement to violence, or the distribution of child exploitation material. Protecting minors from early and repeated exposure to violent, degrading and addictive pornographic content belongs in the same category of legitimate protection. Of course, there is also an argument to be made as to whether content as dehumanising and destructive as pornography should be limited more generally.
Children's Safety Must Come First
Protecting children from pornographic material is not ‘censorship’. It is heartening to see both the US and Australia taking steps in the right direction, which put the safety, dignity and wellbeing of children first.
In an ideal world children would be online much less than they currently are, but even then, the internet isn't going anywhere. We must stop tiptoeing around the porn industry’s profits and adult consumers’ convenience, and start prioritising the rights of children to a safe and developmentally appropriate online environment.
Women’s Forum Australia is an independent think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We are a non-partisan, non-religious, tax-deductible charity. We do not receive any government funding and rely solely on donations to make an impact. Support our work today.
| I’ll stand with women ▷ |