Wisconsinites Can Keep Watching Porn After Governor Vetoes Age Verification Bill
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers vetoed a bill this week that would have required age verification to access pornographic websites, which means the great state of Wisconsin will continue to handle this the same way it always has — on the honor system. The bill’s supporters argued it was about protecting children, and the governor argued it was about protecting adults from having to hand their government ID to a porn site, which is one of those debates where both sides are technically correct and nobody wins. It joins a growing pile of similar legislation that keeps getting introduced, debated with great seriousness by people who have clearly thought about this more than they want to admit, and then either vetoed or struck down in court for being a privacy disaster dressed up as child safety. Wisconsin for now remains free, which is a sentence I did not expect to write today.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers vetoed a bill this week that would have required age verification to access pornographic websites, which means the great state of Wisconsin will continue to handle this the same way it always has — on the honor system. The bill’s supporters argued it was about protecting children, and the governor argued it was about protecting adults from having to hand their government ID to a porn site, which is one of those debates where both sides are technically correct and nobody wins. It joins a growing pile of similar legislation that keeps getting introduced, debated with great seriousness by people who have clearly thought about this more than they want to admit, and then either vetoed or struck down in court for being a privacy disaster dressed up as child safety. Wisconsin for now remains free, which is a sentence I did not expect to write today.