A woman from Kansas has sued a number of porn websites after her teenage son found her old laptop in a closet and used it to visit the explicit sites. According to the lawsuit, the sites in question failed to institute appropriate guardrails to keep young users away from the adult content.
404 Media originally reported on the litigation, which was filed with the help of The National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center (NCOSE), an organization that focuses on a variety of sex crimes, including sex trafficking and child sexual abuse material. The suit lists as defendants Chaturbate.com, Jerkmate.com, Titan Websites, and Techpump Solutions (also known as Superporn.com). A statement from NCOSE explains the mother’s grievances thusly:
Q.R. is a 14-year-old minor child who resides in Kansas with his mother, Jane Doe. Jane Doe was vigilant in monitoring Q.R.’s devices to prevent his exposure to harmful material during this important developmental stage of his life. However, on August 12, 2024, Q.R. found an old laptop that was stored forgotten in a closet. Unfortunately for Q.R., it was still in working condition. Q.R., using this old laptop, was able to access the internet and began searching for hardcore pornography.
The lawsuit hinges on the claim that the sites should have instituted age-verification mechanisms to comply with a recently passed Kansas law that mandates authentication for adult sites. A statement from the NCOSE claims that the litigation represents the “first lawsuits filed in the U.S. that challenge alleged violators of age verification laws.”
“It is unreasonably dangerous for these pornography websites to provide this product which they know is harmful to children, that children are drawn to access, and do access, without employing age verification as required by Kansas law. Our plaintiff deserves every measure of justice,” a statement from the NCOSE says.
Gizmodo reached out to the defendants, with the exception of Titan Websites, as it wasn’t immediately clear how to contact the company.
The NCOSE’s website shows it has also assisted with lawsuits against XVideos, another prominent porn site, as well as against Twitter, which it accuses of breaking a federal sex trafficking statute.
The modern anti-porn movement has popped up in mostly conservative states and has sought to highlight the harmful psychological impact that pornography may have on young people. Over the past decade, more than a dozen states have passed age-verification laws designed to curb youth access to porn, much of which is still being challenged in court. It’s unclear how effective these laws can actually be, since using a VPN should presumably allow a user to pretend as if they are accessing the websites from a location that is unregulated by such laws.
