London-based green activist group Global Witness launched a citywide billboard campaignurging Britain to close the loophole that allows up to 5 percent of UK flights to still run on Russian fuel.
On the posters, Russian President Vladimir Putin is pictured as a British commercial airline captain at an airport, flanked by two flight attendants represented as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt.
The poster draws attention to the fact that an estimated one in 20 British planes is powered by Russian oil, meaning that the British government continues to support Russia’s most important export despite sanctions.
The U.K. government imposed an embargo on Russian oil imports in March 2022, following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, and the legislation came into force at the end of the year. However, companies are free to import fuel produced from Russian oil, provided it has not been refined in Russia.
This legal loophole has encouraged oil refiners in other countries, such as India and Turkey, to import even more Russian oil — and in the process, of course, they have increased their exports to Western countries, including the U.K.
Data analyzed by the international NGO Global Witness shows that the U.K. imports significant quantities of jet fuel from three Indian refineries.
Around 40 percent of the fuel for these refineries comes from Russia, which is blended with fuel from other sources and then refined into petroleum products, including jet fuel.
The billboards are part of a campaign by Global Witness to send a message to the British government that their trade is helping to fund the Russian war in Ukraine.
But, as Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, along with the many benefits of the online world and our increased interconnectivity also come risks.
This includes phishing, when bad actors try to obtain private data such as banking details from users by sending bogus emails that impersonate companies or public bodies, as well as attempts to breach and leak databases that hold personal information for subsequent identity theft or scams using credit cards.
The following chart uses data from Statista’s Consumer Insights survey to show where the question of the misuse of their personal data is a common concern.
It reveals that out of the selected countries, a bigger share of Spanish respondents were concerned (56 percent) than the other polled countries, followed by Chile (50 percent), and Mexico (48 percent).
Meanwhile, under a third of respondents shared the same concern in the United States (27 percent), South Africa (28 percent) and the United Kingdom (28 percent).
There are more than 175,000 people living in Britain awaiting a decision on their asylum applications, the highest figure reported since records began in 2010, Home Office data published on Thursday showed.
The asylum backlog had extended to 175,457 individuals awaiting an initial decision by the end of June this year, up 44 percent from June 2022.
Similarly, the number of asylum applications submitted this year reached a two-decade high, with 78,768 applications relating to 97,390 people, up 19 percent from the previous year.
“This is higher than at the time of the European migration crisis (in 2016) and is the highest number of applications for two decades,” the Home Office stated.
The most common nationality of applicants was Albanian with 11,790 applications, followed by Afghans with 9,964 applications, double the number received from the country in the previous year.
A total of 71 percent of all decisions made in the year to June granted refugee status or humanitarian protection, more than double the percentage granted prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to clear the legacy asylum backlog — i.e., asylum applications made up to June last year — by the end of this year, but Home Office officials have only cleared an average of 2,061 cases a month.
With another 67,870 cases remaining, the government faces the seemingly impossible task of processing over 11,000 cases every month for the rest of the year to meet its target.
Irregular immigration into Britain has also skyrocketed this year, with 52,530 migrants detected entering the U.K. without permission in the year ending June 2023, up 17 percent from the previous year. A total of 85 percent of these arrived via small boats across the English Channel.
The vast majority of these are being accommodated in hotels across the country, with an estimated cost of £6 million per day to U.K. taxpayers. A total of 47,518 migrants were being housed in hotels in March 2023, rising to 50,546 by June despite the government making pledges to reduce this figure.
According to the Home Office data, the government’s annual spending on asylum has almost doubled from £2.12 billion in 2021-2022 to £3.97 billion in 2022-2023.
“The Tories have failed us all on immigration,” conservative broadcaster Nigel Farage posted in response to the figures, while Labour’s Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock said the statistics “set out in stark terms the complete chaos the Tories have created in the immigration and asylum system.
“Only 1 percent of last year’s 45,000 small boats cases have received a decision, and the number of failed asylum seekers being returned is also down a whopping 70 percent since 2010. This is a disastrous record for the prime minister and home secretary,” he added.
Despite Labour’s protestations, the party has regularly refused to commit to reducing immigration levels should they come to power as expected at the next general election.
Visualizing The Future Global Economy By GDP In 2050
According to a recent report from Goldman Sachs, the balance of global economic power is projected to shift dramatically in the coming decades.
More specifically, analysts believe that Asia could soon become the largest regional contributor to world GDP, surpassing the traditional economic powerhouses grouped together in the Developed Markets (DM) category.
In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes Goldman Sachs’ real GDP forecasts for the year 2050 using a voronoi diagram.
Data and Highlights
The following table includes a regional breakdown of expected real GDP in 2050. All figures are based on 2021 USD.
Based on these projections, Asia (ex DM) will represent 40% of global GDP, slightly ahead of Developed Markets’ expected share of 36%. This would mark a massive shift from 50 years ago (2000), when DMs represented over 77% of global GDP.
Asia
Focusing on Asia, China and India will account for the majority of the region’s expected GDP in 2050, though growth in China will have tapered off significantly. In fact, Goldman Sachs expects annual real GDP growth in the country to average 1.1% through the 2050s. This is surprisingly slower than America’s expected 1.4% annual growth during the same decade.
The fastest growing economies in Asia during the 2050s will be India (3.1% annually), Bangladesh (3.0% annually), and the Philippines (3.5% annually). These countries are expected to thrive thanks to their high population growth rates and relatively low median age, which translates into a larger work force.
Latin America
Turning our attention to Latin America, we can see that the region will account for a relatively small 7% of global GDP in 2050. According to Goldman Sachs’ previous projections from 2011, many Latin American countries have underperformed over the past decade. For example, Brazil’s real GDP shrank from $2.7 trillion in 2010, to $1.5 trillion in 2020.
Because of these setbacks, Goldman Sachs believes Indonesia will be able to overtake Brazil as the world’s largest emerging market before 2050.
That said, Brazil’s economic ranking is still expected to climb above France and Canada by then, if these projections prove to be accurate.
“Election Interference”: Trump Returns To Twitter After Georgia Booking
Update (2145ET): After more than two-and-a-half years without tweeting, Trump has finally returned to the platform following Thursday’s booking in Georgia.
Meanwhile, Trump’s already selling t-shirts with the mugshot. Great job Fani, you may have just cost Biden the election.
And the meme magicians are already at it…
* * *
Update (2025ET): After about 20 minutes to take a mugshot Trump left the Fulton County jail.
“It’s election interference. … I want to thank you for being here. We did nothing wrong at all. And we have every right, every single right to challenge an election that we think is dishonest. So we think it’s very dishonest,” he told reporters at Atlanta’s airport, before leaving.
Former President Donald Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail on Thursday on state charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
According to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, Trump is 6’3″ and 215 lbs (which he was allowed to pre-report to ‘speed up the process,’ so who knows).
MUST WATCH: #FultonCounty Sheriff’s officers are violating the First Amendment right of Trump supporters and the media who showed up to the Fulton County Jail today ahead of President Trump’s arrest.
Officers with black masks and guns placed barricades up in the location where… pic.twitter.com/1KoxBdc3OI
Trump and 18 other people were indicted last week after being accused by Fulton County DA Fani Willis of participating in a scheme to flip the results of the election – many of whom have already turned themselves in, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis on Wednesday and John Eastman and Mark Meadows on Tuesday.
the scene outside the jail was anything but normal Thursday.
It included supporters of the former president such as Cliff MacMorris, 66, from Naples, Florida, who held a flag that read, “Trump Won Save America.”
He and his wife, Georgine, spent the night in Atlanta.
“You don’t have the right to persecute somebody unjustly,” Cliff MacMorris said.
His wife said the indictments against the former president were politically motivated because of the four years of “prosperity, safety, freedom” that Trump achieved in the White House.
“They must be worried about him for some reason,” she said.
Sharon Anderson, 67, from east Tennessee, was outside the jail for a second straight day. She had spent the night in a car with the air conditioning running.
“I’m here to support Donald J. Trump. I want him to see some of the millions that show up at the polls for him.”
Trump faces 13 separate counts in Georgia, including a racketeering charge and several fraud and false statement count. Trump had until Friday to turn himself in.
“Yet Another Case Of Weaponization”: Musk Responds After DOJ Sues SpaceX For Not Hiring Refugees
On Wednesday, Elon Musk threatened to sue organizations funded by left-wing financier George Soros for falsely claiming “hate incidents” are on the rise, in order to justify censorship. Less than a day later, Biden’s ‘not weaponized’ DOJ slapped SpaceX with a lawsuit for not hiring asylum seekers and refugees.
According to the lawsuit – which has been brewing since 2020, the DOJ found that “SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” according to Kristen Clarke, assistant AG of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
“SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from seeking work opportunities at the company,” according to the complaint.
According to data SpaceX provided, the DOJ said that over a nearly four period and across more than 10,000 hires, the company “hired only one individual who was an asylee and identified as such in his application.”
That lone hire came about four months after the DOJ notified SpaceX of its investigation.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The suit was filed in the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a division of the DOJ that adjudicates immigration cases. –CNBC
SpaceX and other rocket companies have for years asserted that its hiring practices were dictated by the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) law, which regulates the export of regulated technologies, such as rocket parts. An “export” is deemed to have occurred if technology is disclosed to a foreigner, even in the U.S.
Musk responded Thursday night, tweeting “SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense,” adding “This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.”
Exactly.
SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense.
We couldn’t even hire Canadian citizens, despite Canada being part of NORAD!
The Biden administration’s lawsuit seeks to win “fair consideration and back pay for asylees and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX due to the alleged discrimination,” along with civil penalties and policy changes from the company.
Will the DOJ go after Northrop, Lockheed and Boeing for the same thing?
Instead of punishing @elonmusk for hiring American citizens over non-citizens, we should be celebrating him for putting our people first. This is all really just about the Dem thugs in the Biden DOJ being furious that Elon ended the censorship and brought Freedom of Speech to @X. https://t.co/3SKixKHQcY
A Catholic school system in Massachusetts under the Diocese of Worcester is asking students to behave in accordance with their sex, including while using pronouns and names.
“All students are expected to conduct themselves at school in a manner consistent with their biological sex,” the Diocese said in an Aug. 15 announcement. “School practice shall consider the gender of all students as being consistent with their biological sex, including, but not limited to, the following: participation in school athletics; school-sponsored dances; dress and uniform policies; the use of changing facilities, showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms; titles, names, and pronouns; and official school documents.”
Official documents, including school records, transcripts, and diplomas shall reflect the student’s biological sex as determined at the time of their birth and enrollment.
The new policy prohibits students from engaging in advocacy, celebration, or expression of same-sex attraction in ways that cause “confusion or distraction” to the function of the school like classes, events, and other activities.
It also prohibits bullying, harassment, threats, or acts of violence against students on the basis of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
“While some schools had policies in place, others did not. Individual situations were arising which underscored a need for a single policy which clearly states Church teaching and provides consistent application of that teaching across all our schools,” said David Perda, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the diocese.
The new policy, titled “Catholic Education and the Human Person,” was approved by Bishop Robert McManus in late June and was sent to all Catholic schools to include them in school handbooks this fall. The Diocese is located roughly 45 miles west of Boston.
Some Schools Not Implementing New Rules
The Diocese of Worcester’s new policy is expected to affect 21 Catholic schools in Worcester, with over 5,000 students coming under the purview. However, some schools have indicated that they may not adopt the new guidelines.
In an Aug. 11 letter to Bishop McManus, Xaverian Brothers General Superior Brother Daniel Skala and Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur Sister Patty Chappell said that the boards of trustees of their religious orders had reviewed the policy, according to Patch.
The boards have decided not to implement the new policies in student handbooks at the two schools the orders sponsor—the all-girls Notre Dame Academy in Worcester and all-boys St. John’s in Shrewsbury.
“We support our respective boards’ recent determination to uphold their established practices, guided by the principles of our Church and Religious Orders, instead of incorporating the [new policies] into their handbooks,” the letter stated.
Schools under the Diocese of Worcester that do not follow the new policy on gender ideology could face punishment.
Last year, Bishop McManus stripped the affiliation of Nativity School in Worcester, asking that it stop identifying itself as a Catholic school after the institution refused to take down LGBT and Black Lives Matter flags.
Bishop McManus had also prohibited the school from performing Mass ceremonies.
Pope Mixes Messaging
The Diocese of Worcester’s new policy is based on various Biblical sources and references the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the teachings of Pope Francis.
Pope Francis has “repeatedly stressed the importance of a proper understanding of our sexuality, warning of the challenge posed by ‘the various forms of an ideology of gender that denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual difference,’” the policy states.
“As Pope Francis notes, we must always respect the sacred dignity of each individual person, but that does not mean the Church must accept the confused notions of secular gender ideology.”
Though the policy cites Pope Francis while dismissing gender ideology, the Pope has given mixed messages regarding the issue over the past years.
Back in 2013 when asked about the sexual orientation of priests, the Pope replied, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” according to AP.
In 2015, Pope Francis criticized gender ideologies, comparing such theories to nuclear weapons and genetic manipulation.
In 2021, Pope Francis came under criticism from the gay community after the Vatican stated that the church cannot bless same-sex unions. In an interview with AP in January this year, the Pope said homosexuality was “not a crime,” but that it is a “sin.”
The Diocese of Worcester’s decision to ban preferred pronouns comes as several institutions are imposing pronoun use and punishing people who do not comply with such measures. Teachers have been expelled from schools for not using such pronouns due to their religious beliefs.
In a recent interview with The Washington Examiner, Tyson Langhofer, a senior counsel at advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), suggested that as the issue of pronoun use becomes widespread, SCOTUS may have to intervene.
“I do believe that the Supreme Court is going to have to weigh in on this if schools continue adopting these policies, which it appears that they’re doing,” he said.
“This issue is very [common] … And I think it’s because there’s a lot of misinformation out there from outside advocacy organizations, which are pressuring schools, telling them what they can and can’t do.”
Pentagon To Send Ukrainian Pilots For F-16 Training To Texas & Arizona
A US official has informed The New York Times on Thursday that the Pentagon plans to begin training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets inside the US, as part of a program which could start as early as September.
Already a program has been kicked off in the Netherlands and Denmark, which Kiev has complained has been too slow to get off the ground, also given it only includes six Ukrainian pilots. At this rate, the expected date that Ukraine could be piloting the US-made jets in battle keeps getting pushed back – from estimates of next summer to now perhaps end of 2024.
“[We’re] open to training existing pilots if capacity is reached in Europe,” a Pentagon spokesperson had initially previewed days ago, on Monday.
“That’s the condition. So, if Denmark and the Netherlands are taking the lead on training, if they just do not have the capacity … to train as many pilots as Ukraine wants to send or plans to send, then we will… help train stateside,” the earlier statement added.
But on Thursday more details have come out, apparently with a fuller US commitment, which will see training locations which includes Texas and Arizona.
The NY Times details, “The pilots will first receive English language training in Texas and then begin months of flight training in Arizona, said the U.S. official who addressed the issue on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss future training plans.”
Currently Denmark and the Netherlands have pledged quantities of their own Lockheed produced F-16s. The Biden White House earlier this month made the key decision to allow export of its fighters from third-parties, but has yet to commit its own, which could still be coming.
Ukrainian officials have all along bitterly complained it’s becoming too little, too late in terms of F-16s aiding the failing counteroffensive. Kiev very obviously lacks any level of air superiority, which would be strategically necessary toward liberating territory. Many analysts are seeing the F-16 program as more about Ukraine’s future defense, post-war.
Given the Europe-based pilot training program has a mere half-dozen Ukrainian pilots enrolled, it’s not expected that the US program will host a large group of potential pilots.
As for precise location within Texas, the Ukrainians would likely be placed somewhere at one of the multiple Air Force facilities in San Antonio.
Hypocrisy — claiming to have beliefs to which one’s behavior does not conform — has long been a defining characteristic of many politicians. But a few brave souls recently have bucked the official party line to stand up for their beliefs and constituents.
Georgia state legislator Mesha Mainor recently announced she is leaving the Democrat party to become a Republican, saying, “For far too long, the Democrat Party has gotten away with using and abusing the black community. For decades, the Democrat Party has received the support of more than 90% of the black community. And what do we have to show for it? I represent a solidly blue district in the city of Atlanta. This isn’t a political decision for me. It’s a moral one.”
Minor says her Democrat colleagues crucified her when she decided to stand up for disadvantaged children in support of school choice.
Kansas Democrat Marvin Robinson hasn’t changed party affiliation, but he is taking a lot of abuse from Democrats for supporting school choice for disadvantaged kids and protecting biological women’s right to compete in the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. He says one female Democrat in the Legislature told him he should die.
Mainor says, “The most dangerous thing to the Democrat Party is a black person with a mind of their own.”
Kansas Democrats also pressure members to vote against children and for the unions.
Rep. Brad Boyd, an Olathe, Kansas Democrat who serves on the Olathe School Board, saysschool choice “targets black and brown kids, who can’t afford to attend some of these prestigious private institutions when we take money away from public schools.”
School choice programs do target minorities and low-income students, but quite the opposite of how Boyd contends. First, seven of the eight studies on the effect of choice programs on integration found positive impacts; the other showed no visible impact. That’s because minorities comprise a disproportionate share of student enrollment in choice programs. Second, most studies show that public school students have better outcomes after the introduction of choice programs.
Despite these irrefutable facts, Rep. Boyd and other choice opponents want to keep students trapped in public schools and condemn them to a lifetime of underachievement because that is the will of the teacher unions and other education officials. Only 13% of Black high school students in Boyd’s Olathe district are proficient in math, and more than half are below grade level.
Shockingly low proficiency for Black students isn’t just a Kansas issue; it runs rampant nationwide. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows 62% of Black eighth-graders are below basic in math, and only 9% are proficient, for example.
Kansas Republican Mark Schreiber justifies his opposition to choice by saying the state should focus on providing more early childhood education programs. That might seem plausible at face value, but people like Schreiber who are familiar with the workings of the Kansas public school system know that won’t help low-income kids. Legislators have provided more than $5 billion in incremental funding to help those kids since 2005, but state audits consistently find that public school officials refuse to spend that money as state law requires. And the State Board of Education lets them get away with it.
Kansas legislators who oppose school choice know that the public system is consciously leaving behind poor kids in general and Black students in particular, but they refuse to talk about it. State Rep. Valdenia Winn (D-Wyandotte) sees it firsthand as a member of the Kansas City, Kansas, school board, which refuses to follow state law on spending at-risk funding and conducting student needs assessments. Sill, she contends that choice would “kill public education.”
Choice has existed in states like Florida and Arizona for decades and has not ‘killed’ public education. Just look at 4th-grade reading results for low-income kids. Florida students were trailing the national average in 1998; today, they have the highest proficiency level in the nation. Arizona students were three points below the national average, but now they meet the national average.
Politicians know that the public education system harms the low-income families they purport to represent and who would benefit from school choice. Yet they use them as pawns to protect the party and institutional interests.
School choice is perhaps the most bipartisan issue in the nation today, with solid support from parents of all political persuasions. Legislators in both parties should stop protecting education systems and pass universal school choice in every state so that students can get a good education and succeed in life.
Dave Trabert is CEO of Kansas Policy Institute, a nonprofit research and education organization that promotes economic and educational freedom and protects constitutional rights.
Graphic, violent, deviant, and harmful online pornography that can permanently affect brain development can be easily accessed by children.
And the federal government is doing little to stop it, experts and lawmakers told The Epoch Times.
Although showing pornography to children is illegal under federal law, federal rules don’t require porn websites to verify the age of users.
But recently, bipartisan efforts in state legislatures have intervened to protect children in a handful of states.
It’s important—and urgent—because watching violent porn damages children, therapist Jon Uhler and psychologist Amy Sousa told The Epoch Times.
“Being shown violence alongside a reward system is incredibly problematic because it is sending the body a signal that this violence is pleasurable,” Ms. Sousa said.
By teaching children to associate sexual pleasure with pain, she said, pornography can rewire a viewer’s brain to want pain or want to inflict pain.
This rewiring undoes the body’s natural response of feeling distressed when seeing someone get hurt, she explained.
And porn-watching is more common than many might realize.
Porn gets more yearly “watch hours” than all Hollywood, Netflix, and Viacom programming combined, Ms. Sousa said.
“Eighty-eight percent of porn videos contain violence against women, which basically translates to 5.1 billion of those visits per month,” Ms. Sousa said.
“Porn represents a massive propaganda arm that is normalizing and desensitizing violence against women.”
Viewing pornography teaches men to see women as objects, said Mr. Uhler, who has 15 years of counseling experience and thousands of hours of experience in treating sex offenders.
Children who admit to watching porn also admit to feeling guilty about it, he said.
Over time, repeatedly engaging in behavior that violates one’s conscience can turn a person into a psychopath, he said.
“As you impact conscience, you will negatively impact remorse and empathy,” he said. “Those three things are the basis of psychopathy.”
And this, he said, can open the gateway to becoming a sexual predator.
In counseling thousands of sexual predators, Mr. Uhler has seen a pattern. For all of his patients, the road to sexual deviancy involved viewing porn, he said.
“A lot of good researchers have looked at the effects that pornography has on the brain,” Mr. Uhler said.
“It’s identical to drugs, literally in terms of the impact on the structure itself and the way it processes.”
With an unprecedented number of boys watching violent porn, Mr. Uhler said, the future will likely yield a massive crop of men who have learned from childhood to defy their conscience.
“We are in uncharted territory.”
Conflicting Views on Restrictions
Despite these dangers, the federal government has done little to prevent children from accessing online porn, Sousa, Uhler, and lawmakers said.
“The federal law [banning pornography access for children] is not enforced,” Utah state Sen. Todd Weiler, a Republican, told The Epoch Times.
Ian Andrews, a spokesman for Pornhub, told The Epoch Times that the company supports measures to restrict children from viewing porn by verifying the age of users. But he doubts new laws requiring age verification of users will help protect minors. Pornhub is the world’s 12th-most-visited website, with more than 2.5 billion visitors yearly, according to the consumer research firm Similarweb.
Mr. Andrews argued that the laws may have the opposite effect.
“We hypothesized for years that, if only certain platforms were forced to verify user age, or if a law is not regulated properly, the results would see users flocking to the platforms that do not verify age,” he said.
“This is no longer hypothetical. Since we became one of the few platforms in Louisiana to comply with the law and institute mandatory age verification, we have seen an approximately 80 percent drop in our traffic in the state.”
Amping Up Laws
Lawmakers in some states are determined to amend state laws to block children from viewing porn.
In May, Utah passed a law requiring pornographic websites to verify that users from that state are at least 18. Louisiana, which enacted a similar law in 2022, was the first state to demand age-verification measures to access pornographic websites, Mr. Weiler said.
“We made a few minor tweaks, but we basically copied Louisiana’s” law in Utah, he said.
The Louisiana law demands that porn websites perform “reasonable age-verification methods” for Louisiana users.
For Mr. Weiler, the fight to protect children from porn websites began in 2016.
“I ran the first resolution in the country to declare pornography to be a public health crisis,” he said.
While the resolution declared that child viewing of pornography was a public health crisis, resolutions don’t have the force of law or any law enforcement effects.
“And since that time, about 15 other states have basically copied” the resolution, Mr. Weiler said.
Five states have joined Utah and Louisiana in going farther.
Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, Montana, and Arkansas have added age-verification laws for pornography websites.
Arizona, California, South Carolina, Minnesota, and New Jersey all have bills for age verification under consideration, according to data gathered by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC).
Support for the bills is largely bipartisan, Mr. Weiler said.
“This is not just a Republican issue,” he said. “I think many Democrats agree that children shouldn’t be viewing this content.“
Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, South Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri, Alabama, and Tennessee have considered bills requiring age verification for porn users, but they failed to pass, according to FSC.
Relying on Honest Answers
According to federal law, the crime of “knowingly” using computer services to display obscenity to minors is punishable with imprisonment, fines, and sex offender registration.
But the word “knowingly” provides a loophole, Mr. Uhler said.
Under federal law, if a teen lies about his or her age to access porn, porn distributors can’t be blamed for believing the age verification information provided by the child, he said.
“Like a kid who wants to access porn is going to be honest,” Mr. Uhler said wryly.
This system puts the responsibility on minors to be truthful, rather than on porn website operators to ascertain the truth, Mr. Weiler said.
Companies have “taken steps to make sure that 14-year-old girls in Topeka, Kansas, aren’t accessing online gambling sites,” he said. “They’ve taken steps to make sure that 14-year-old girls in Topeka, Kansas, aren’t buying vaping and nicotine products online. And those companies are not directly shipping wine to 14-year-old girls.”
But the porn industry hasn’t received the same regulatory pressure to protect children from its products, he said.
Any company actually interested in blocking minors from accessing the porn it offers could use a third-party company to screen users before they’re allowed to access the site.
“The technology’s there,” Mr. Weiler said. “It would take about 30 seconds” to verify a would-be user’s identity and age.
Utah’s laws demand that verification on porn websites require more proof than simply a user’s assertion that he or she is 18 or older.
Still, there are ways tech-savvy children can get around it, Mr. Weiler said.
But even if new measures don’t stop all minors from accessing porn, he said, it will at least protect the youngest and most vulnerable children from seeing graphic images that can do them permanent harm.
A Generation of Porn-Watchers
Pornhub works like YouTube, the online video-sharing platform. Anyone can upload videos, and anyone can watch them. In 2021, the company says it removed more than 53,000 videos because they contained child sex abuse, 6,000 videos that included incest, more than 1,000 videos for animal abuse, and more than 5,000 videos for other obscene content too graphic to describe.
To her horror, sexual-abuse victimVictoria Galy discovered that footage of her rape had been posted to Pornhub and viewed 8 million times.
Ms. Galy told the Canadian House of Commons ethics committee in February that Pornhub made it difficult for abuse victims to take down videos of crimes against them.
To delete some of the videos, she testified, Pornhub requested a copyright infringement notification from her.
According to Pornhub’s policy, anyone asking for a video’s removal must give the site his or her name, postal address, telephone number, and email address.
Teens often are the consumers viewing pornographic videos, according to a survey by Common Sense Media. Researchers found about 70 percent of teens ages 13-17 admitted to watching porn online.
The survey asked more than 1,300 participants in that age group about their experience with porn. The average teen admitted to encountering porn by the age of 12, the survey found. Some started watching as young as 10.
A majority of porn-viewing teens have watched violent porn showing rape, choking, or pain, survey results showed.
While 45 percent of teens said that porn gives “helpful information about sex,” about 50 percent reported feeling ashamed about the porn they watch, the survey found.
