PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Rhode Island has become the latest state to consider legislation which would require manufacturers and sellers of internet-enabled devices to include filters on those devices to block sexual content – although the Rhode Island bill offers a couple of significant twists on similar legislation which has been considered in Virginia and elsewhere.

While the new Rhode Island bill is quite similar in most respects to legislation which has been offered in other states under the title “the Human Trafficking Prevention Act” (“HTPA”) or other language which references human trafficking, Rhode Island’s bill, S.2584, currently carries the description “An Act Relating to Public Utilities and Carriers – Internet Digital Blocking.”

Unlike some other versions of the HTPA, the Rhode Island bill targets internet service providers in addition to device manufacturers and sellers, stating that ISPs “shall provide with any Internet service or product sold, leased or distributed, a digital blocking capability that renders inaccessible sexual content and/or patently offensive material,” as those terms are defined under state law.

As noted by attorney Karen Tynan, the definition of “sexual content” referenced in S.2584 means the bill would implicate content which goes far beyond what most people think of as “hard core” porn, let alone “obscene” material.

“The content covered by this bill is broad and problematic,” Tynan told YNOT, citing the definition of “sexual content” under Rhode Island law. That definition includes “an act of sexual intercourse, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including genital-genital, anal-genital, or oral-genital intercourse, whether between human beings or between a human being and an animal… sadomasochistic abuse, meaning flagellation or torture by or upon a person in an act of apparent sexual stimulation or gratification” and “masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibitions of the genitals.”

“I’m not worried about the sex with an animal definition,” Tynan said, “but ‘lewd exhibitions of the genitals’ sure sounds like about 80% of the social media posts from my clients, both producers and performers. This definition also includes much of the ‘soft core’ late night cable fare that consumers enjoy.”

Despite not featuring the term “human trafficking” in the title of the bill, the language of the bill is otherwise consistent with other iterations of the HTPA, including the fact it permits consumers to disable the “digital blocking capability” of their devices by paying a “digital access fee” of $20. The revenue from the fee would then go toward funding the state’s council on human trafficking, which was created in 2017 under the Uniform Act on Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking – an act which was described at the time as a “comprehensive” human trafficking law.

Regardless of the bill’s title or the terms used to describe it, attorney Larry Walters told YNOT “what we’re seeing with this bill, and others like it, is a continuing effort to conflate the issue of human trafficking with the separate issues of sex work and pornography.”

“Previous direct attacks on pornography on moral grounds have failed miserably, so censors have learned they need to come up with a new approach, which mixes constitutionally protected expression with illegal activity such as trafficking,” Walters said.

Making matters worse, bills like this are considered counterproductive in combatting human trafficking, in part because they muddy the waters surrounding the issue.

“Just a couple years ago, the ACLU and Amnesty International called for decriminalization of prostitution,” Walters noted. “Now that sex work has been lumped in with trafficking, we’re seeing new bills at the state and federal levels that create new criminal prohibitions on facilitating prostitution. The political strategy is gaining traction, but it’s based on the false assumption that trafficking, sex work, and pornography are all somehow equivalent.”

Tynan zeroed-in on the bill’s conflating of different issues, as well, and observed there’s nothing new about legislators doing this sort of thing.

“Once again, a legislature creates an unworkable solution to an undefined problem,” Tynan said. “The legislature wants to look tough on ‘child porn’ but instead conflates the illegal acts of child pornography with legal and artistic adult content. The fact that the content blocking funds eventually ‘help fund the council on human trafficking’ and are sloppily designated for a loosely defined good purpose is meant to make this bill sound compelling. In the end, these bills are meant to interfere and stop protected speech, obstruct commerce related to legal adult content, and inhibit consumers from media sources that the legislature disapproves.”

Walters concurred – and observed that the overly broad scope and onerous nature of measures like S.2584, should they become law, could lead to their undoing once subjected to court scrutiny.

“The Rhode Island bill goes even further than most by imposing blocking obligations not only on internet-capable products, but also on ISP’s that connect consumers with the internet,” Walters said. “If any of these internet censorship bills are passed, they will almost certainly be challenged in the courts. Since voluntary installation of parental filters is a less restrictive solution than this forced content blocking, the bills are vulnerable to a First Amendment challenge.”