Texas Republicans sold new filter law with false claims about pornography

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Recently Texas passed an amendment to a bill offering statewide municipal broadband that will give preferential treatment to internet providers whose default internet service filters out pornography. 

Sponsor State Rep. Jeff Cason (R–Bedford) supported the bill with false claims about pornography, saying “Pornography currently stands as an enabler to both human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of mostly women throughout our state. Customers should be required to opt in, not opt out, of access [to pornography].” 

There is absolutely no credible evidence linking online pornography with human trafficking. 

Claims linking sex trafficking with legal porn originate with disinformation campaigns from Evangelical groups who want to ban porn and push the government to classify all sexual expression as pornographic. One example is TraffickingHub, a project of Evangelical anti-porn groups NCOSE and Exodus Cry. Propaganda from TraffickingHub and similar groups is finding a foothold across the right, increasingly showing up on explicitly white nationalist forums. 

In reality, Facebook is by all objective measures a much bigger source of revenge porn and CSAM than Pornhub or any other adult site. 

Unless you’re waging an ideological battle against all adult, consensual pornography it makes no sense to single out porn sites for censorship. The evidence supports fully decriminalizing sex work if the real goal is to reduce human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women.

It also makes no sense for the Texas GOP to prioritize battling porn.

Rep Celia Israel challenged Cason, saying the bill means more work for regulators. “Defining pornography creates a lot of bureaucracy that is not needed,” Israel said.  

"While it is great to see the Texas legislature look for ways to connect rural Texans to quality internet, this amendment seems unnecessary,” said James Czerniawski, a Tech and Innovation Policy Analyst at the Libertas Institute in Texas. “There are better ways to mitigate potential harms associated with porn than the default filter this amendment creates that users will either just turn off or workaround."