Ohio House Passes the Innocence Act

State Representatives Steve Demetriou (R-Bainbridge Twp.) and Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Twp.) today announced that the Ohio House passed House Bill 84 – the Innocence Act – legislation that will help protect Ohio children from accessing online materials that are obscene or harmful to juveniles.

“Ohio families are tired of watching big tech and porn companies operate like the rules do not apply to them. This bill says the rules do apply. It says children matter. It says victims matter. And it says Ohio is not going to sit back while this garbage is pushed on our kids,” said Demetriou. 

“Despite action taken in the budget, pornographic websites are continuing to distribute a sea of obscene material to minors without proper age verification,” said Williams. “House Bill 84 ensures these platforms are held accountable and reinforces our laws and helps protect Ohio’s children from obscenity online.”

The Innocence Act aims to shield Ohio’s youth from being exposed to adult content by requiring any entity that publishes obscene or harmful content online to verify the age of its users. The bill also establishes criminal penalties for deep fake pornography where a person’s image or likeness is used in sexual imagery or videos without their consent, allowing prosecutors to bring charges against anyone who superimposes another person’s likeness into sexually explicit content. 

If enacted, House Bill 84 would do the following:

• Require any entity that sells, delivers, furnishes, disseminates, provides, exhibits, or presents any material or performance that is obscene or harmful to juveniles to perform a geolocation check on all users
• Require a covered entity to submit an affidavit to the Attorney General stating its compliance with these age verification requirements
• Allow the Attorney General to investigate reasonable allegations of violation of the age verification requirements, and endows the Attorney General with exclusive enforcement authority for these age verification requirements
• Enable the Attorney General to pursue civil penalties of up to $100,000 for each day that a covered entity fails to comply with these age verification requirements                                                                                                                                        

House Bill 84 now moves to the Ohio Senate for further consideration.