The SCREEN Act And What Passing It Could Mean for Adult Sites

Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah introduced a bill in February 2025 he called the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act. The goal of the bill is in the name, but the Republican definition of “Egregious Exposure” varies greatly. This has been causing alarm amongst adult websites and adult creators, who are already dealing with restrictive censorship laws as it is. 

The vague nature of “Egregious Exposure” is very much by design. In Project 2025, essentially the Republicans' policy playbook, “eradication of pornography” stands out as a key goal. “Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection,” Project 2025’s author, The Heritage Foundation, argues. The soliloquy continues, ordering that any website “facilitating [pornography’s] spread” be shut down, perhaps more alarmingly calling for the imprisonment of pornographers, librarians and educators. 

The SCREEN Act targets any site distributing material “harmful to minors”, but critics of the bill argue that’s much too broad a target. The legislation defines “harmful to minors” as anything that “depicts, describes or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or lewd exhibition of the genitals”.

If passed into law, websites with even a single photo or video fitting this definition would be required to verify every visitor’s age. We’re used to some extra layers of security from sites like PornHub and OnlyFans, but this bill would require sites like Netflix, Discord, or Reddit to handle the sensitive identifying information of their customers. 

This means it’s not as easy as clicking a button that says “Yes, I’m 18 or older”. Even if you plan on visiting a site that isn’t overtly sexually explicit, under the SCREEN Act, you would be required to provide a picture of your ID. That’s a ton of personal information just hanging out in a database somewhere, being retained for who knows how long before being sold to who knows who.

As of now, no penalties exist within the SCREEN Act for websites that mishandle sensitive personal information, and a company can define “reasonable use” of sensitive data as a number of things and still be protected by law. 

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are also in the crosshairs of the SCREEN Act. For the uninitiated, VPNs pose as somewhat of a virtual P.O. box, so the website you’re on doesn’t have your actual location. VPNs are widely accepted and used for non-malicious purposes (mostly for protection of privacy). Journalists, activists, and other important public figures who want to safely access the web use VPNs all the time. The SCREEN Act specifically targets web traffic from addresses known to be VPNs. 

Though the SCREEN Act is the star of the show, other online safety initiatives have been floating around the legislative branch of government for years. Also on the table is the Youth AI Privacy Act, which would require AI “chatbots” to include a disclaimer that they’re a bot, not a real person. The CHATBOT Act is also in the mix. If passed, it would mandate AI companies create a “parental controls”-esque “family account” for parents to control their child’s use of AI. 

Amid everyone’s focus on sexual content and AI, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), is an example of a more bipartisan bill with more specific targets. KOSA would make social media platforms legally responsible if they’re found to have content promoting eating disorders, substance abuse, suicide, sexual exploitation, or ads for addictive vices like tobacco products. Despite being widely supported, concerns about freedom of speech and censorship being infringed upon by KOSA have resulted in the bill’s repeated failure to pass. 

The Internet in today’s America might as well be the Wild West. With some lawmakers too old to even know how their cell phone works, how can they be expected to effectively regulate what goes down online? The invasions of privacy deemed necessary under the SCREEN Act have given many Democrats and even some Republicans, cause for pause. But with the restrictive age-verification laws that have been passed in certain states, a more concentrated effort to pass a bill like the SCREEN Act could be around the corner.