California Assembly Bill 3080  "Age verification: obscene and indecent material" was introduced on February 16, 2024. In following with other states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia; California Assembly Member Juan Alanis (R) of California Assembly District 22, has proposed this bill as a way to prevent minors from accessing "obscene" or "indecent" material online. However, as with the bills in these other states, the way that this is done is highly invasive to California internet users.

By the language of this bill, any website which hosts or produces content which could be considered "harmful" to minors with intent to make a profit from it would be forced to verify the ages of users via strict identification verification. However, as with many reactive censorship laws regarding sexual content, the language of this bill is broad enough that, given to a power who has a secondary agenda, could include material including medical information or LGBT+ content that is nonsexual in nature, as long as the language used makes it considered to be "obscene".

The reach of the type of content this bill would cover is not small, either. As the type of material from websites this would fall under would include "any image, video, audio recording, audiovideo file, film, written material, document, software, data file, scripting language, computer code, game, virtual reality technology, interactive and noninteractive streaming service, interactive and noninteractive streaming software, and downloadable application". Leaving very little that wouldn't be under strict government scrutiny. Especially when the types of identity verification which these sites would be allowed to demand from users to access their content includes state-issued driver’s license, state-issued identification card, government-issued identification card, military identification card, credit card, debit card, or bank account information, as listed under the bill's provisions as "reasonable age verification measures".

Not only does this bill have the power to strip California's adults of their right to privacy unmonitored by the government, it can also cause great potential harms to creators of content considered "Not Safe For Work". Sex workers and other NSFW content creators of California, who are already having a difficult time finding places that will platform their work and allow them to make livable wages, will undoubtedly have an even more difficult time if such restrictive age verification policies are enacted. Especially as it has been proven that websites who host such content would prefer to simply pull their services from a state rather than risk the liability of providing services where they require such sensitive data from customers.

While the protection of minors from harmful content is appropriately considered to be an important issue in this modern internet age, it should not be within the rights of the state government, or any government body, to force adults to give up their right to privacy in matters of their sexual content consumption. The state of California should not be able to mandate that users forfeit their right to anonymity online to the state, especially when the issue of data privacy is already so important these days.

Don't allow California to become yet one more state in a string of states which has chosen to go down this path of striking down its' peoples' right to privacy.

Please do what you can. Sign this petition and contact your California state representatives to tell them to vote NO on CA AB 3080.

You can use the link below to find your California state representatives to contact them and voice your opinion on this bill.

https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/