MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama House of Representatives last week approved a bill copying legislation passed in Utah in 2021, aiming to force phone and computer manufacturers to install default “porn filters” on devices sold in the state.
The Alabama House voted in favor of the bill last Tuesday by a margin of 70-8, with 24 abstentions. The bill next moves to the state Senate.
As XBIZ reported, HB 298 was introduced two years ago by Rep. Chris Sells (R - Greenville) and is part of an ongoing, state-by-state campaign to pass laws requiring default filtering — a crusade being coordinated by religiously motivated organizations including anti-porn lobby NCOSE, formerly known as Morality in Media.
Sells told the Alabama House Judiciary Committee in 2021 that while state laws prohibit children from buying alcohol and cigarettes, when it comes to mobile devices, “all they’ve got to do is punch a couple of buttons and it’s wide open to every kind of adult thing you can imagine.”
Sells demanded state intervention on behalf of “children whose parents haven’t gone to the trouble to make sure the filter is activated.”
“What I’m finding out is that most parents are not taking the time to download an app or to go into the settings of these phones, and just buy a child a phone and hand it to them,” Sells told the committee.
A Republican advisor at the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office testified during hearings about his belief in a statewide crisis of “porn addiction,” a premise contested by most psychology research.
Anderson described one child, with whose case he claimed to be involved, as “a full-blown addict” by the age of 10.
“He was often unsupervised with over four devices that gave him unlimited access to pornography,” Anderson continued, adding that “the child is 12 and remains addicted.”
The Utah bill included the unusual provision that it would not go into effect until five other states have passed matching legislation. Anti-porn lobbies continue recruiting religious politicians to target red-state legislatures in a bid to achieve that number.
Inset: Alabama State Rep. Chris Sells (Alabama State House)