Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, which would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a rule requiring all commercial pornographic websites to adopt age verification technology to ensure children cannot access pornographic content.
At the time of Sen. Lee’s SCREEN Act introduction, seventeen states have recognized pornography as a public health crisis leading to a broad range of individual, societal, and public health impacts. Congress’s past attempts to prevent children from accessing online pornography have, by and large, failed First Amendment scrutiny. Sen. Lee curated this bill to utilize vast technological improvements, giving this legislation good legal ground to pass the Supreme Court’s requirement that the government use the least restrictive means to achieve its interests.
Of the bill, Sen. Lee said, “Every day, we’re learning more about the negative psychological effects pornography has on minors. Given the alarming rate of teenage exposure to pornography, I believe the government must act quickly to enact protections that have a real chance of surviving First Amendment scrutiny. We require age verification at brick-and-mortar shops. Why shouldn’t we require it online?”
For full text of the bill, click HERE.
