Louisiana now requires you to submit ID to watch pornography online



New state legislation for Louisiana now requires age verification and submission of identification in order to watch pornography online, as reported by CNET.

Viewers are now greeted with a prompt: "Louisiana law now requires us to put in place a process for verifying the age of users who connect to our site from Louisiana."

A third-party verification called AllPassTrust is used to verify a user's digital ID or driver's license, which is then fed through a different app for Louisiana driver's licenses. Louisiana uses a digital driver's license platform called LAWallet,

Act 440 seeks to protect minors from "harmful material", stating that publishers must, "relative to material harmful to minors, ... provide for liability for the publishing or distribution of material harmful to minors on the internet provide for reasonable age verification," among other items.

Justification for the law explains the belief that pornography is harmful to teens and children, causing disorders and problematic activities:

"Pornography contributes to the hyper sexualization of teens and prepubescent children and may lead to low self-esteem, body image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior," the legislation reads.

Sites with a "substantial portion" of content deemed to be "harmful to minors" will be held liable if they do not perform age verification before accessing the material. The proportion is marked at anything over 33.3%. The legislation allows for legal action against websites that do not verify the age of minors viewing their content.

According to a report by the Daily Mail, Porn Hub is the only pornography website requiring viewers to verify their age through the LAWallet app in Louisiana at the time of this publication.

"Pornography may also impact brain development and functioning, [and] contribute to emotional and medical illnesses," the document continues.

It can also "shape deviant sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining positive, intimate relationships, as well as promoting problematic or harmful sexual behaviors and addiction," according to the text.

The author of the legislation was state representative Laurie Schlegel (R-82), who previously advocated for legislation to ban transgender women/biological males from competing in girls' sports in the state's schools.

“Allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports shatters girls’ equal opportunities,” said Schlegel in 2021.

The new legislation does not apply to any "bona fide news or public interest broadcast, website video, report, or event" and is not intended to limit the rights of any news-gathering organization.


\u201cIt\u2019s getting awfully surveillancey in here. Anyone in Louisiana accessing pornhub will now have to link their drivers license or government ID in order to access the site. Under his eye.\u201d
— Public Defendering (@Public Defendering) 1672692453

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Pence to receive COVID-19 vaccine 'publicly' on Friday, Biden next week



Vice President Mike Pence will receive Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine "publicly" at the White House on Friday, and President-elect Joe Biden is set to get the shot next week.

The news comes as thousands of Americans are dying from COVID-19 on a daily basis, and officials are seeking to reassure the public that the new vaccine is safe as polls show many people have reservations about the inoculation.

What are the details?

USA Today reported that according to Pence's office, he and Second Lady Karen Pence will both receive the vaccine "'publicly' to promote the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and 'build confidence among the American people." Surgeon General Jerome Adams will join the Pences and receive his jab the same day.

According to CNN, sources say Biden is expected to receive the vaccine next week, noting that "the delay has not been borne out of hesitation, aides say, but rather logistics of administering the shot in a public setting."

Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have also expressed their willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in a public forum in order to build the public's trust in the safety of the shot—possibly even on camera.

Health care workers in the U.S. began receiving the first doses of Pfizer's vaccine this week, after the FDA approved it Friday in a quick turnaround. While it typically takes years to develop and test a vaccine for approval, Pfizer's was developed in roughly nine months as part of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed that helped fund vaccine efforts. President Trump hailed the achievement as a "medical miracle."

But some Americans need convincing, polls show.

"A Gallup poll released Dec. 8 found 63% of Americans would agree to take an FDA-approved vaccine to combat the virus, while 37% would not," USA Today noted.

Even some health care workers have reservations about lining up for the shot.

KCAL-TV reported that a recent survey of Southern California healthcare workers, two-thirds of them "wished to delay vaccination or not get vaccinated," according to study author Dr. Anne Rimoin.

The outlet reported that "the UCLA survey found that the majority of workers felt the vaccines were rushed out of Operation Warp Speed."

Rimoin added, "Healthcare workers are critical. They are not only the first people to get this vaccine, but they will be administering this vaccine and then giving advice to the public about getting the vaccine."

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