Pornographic internet websites: consent.

Plain English Breakdown

The exact penalties and final status of the bill after executive action remain unspecified.

Rules for Pornographic Websites

AB-392 requires pornographic website operators to ensure uploaded content does not include minors or false consent statements and mandates email verification before users can upload.

What This Bill Does

• Requires website operators to exercise ordinary care to prevent sexually explicit content that includes minors from being uploaded.
• Needs people uploading photos or videos to certify, under oath, that everyone in them is over 18 and agreed to be shown.
• Makes it against the rules to lie when saying someone gave permission for a photo or video.
• Tells website operators to verify users' email addresses before letting them upload content.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who run pornographic websites
• Users of pornographic websites

Terms To Know

sexually explicit content

Photos or videos that show sexual acts

depicted individual

A person shown in sexually explicit material

Limits and Unknowns

• Does not specify the exact fines for providing false information.
• The bill has passed both chambers of the California Legislature but its final status is unclear as it may need further executive action.

Official Summary Text

AB 392, as amended, Dixon.
Pornographic internet websites: consent.
Existing law generally regulates obscene content on internet websites, including by requiring a social media platform to provide, in a mechanism that is reasonably accessible to users, a means for a user who is a California resident to report material to the social media platform that the user reasonably believes is, among other things, child sexual abuse material.
This bill would require a person who operates an internet website to exercise ordinary care and reasonable diligence to ensure that any sexually explicit content, as defined, uploaded to the operator’s pornographic internet website does not include a depicted individual, as defined. The bill would require a user to, before uploading sexually explicit content to a pornographic internet website, submit, among other things, a statement certifying, not under penalty of perjury, that any
individual depicted in the sexually explicit content was not a minor at the time the sexually explicit content was created, consented to being depicted in the sexually explicit content, and consents to the sexually explicit content being uploaded to the internet on the pornographic internet website. The bill would make knowingly providing false information in that statement an infraction punishable by a fine, as specified. By creating a new infraction, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require an operator of a pornographic internet website to verify a user’s email address before permitting the user to upload sexually explicit content to the operator’s pornographic internet website.
This bill would authorize a depicted individual and a public prosecutor to bring a civil action to enforce the bill, as prescribed.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse
local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF