30 years ago, one of the only legal ways to access porn was to walk into a store,
show some ID, and purchase a magazine or video.
Today the concept is almost laughable.
I don't even think most minors even realize they're doing something illegal when they search for porn online.
When something is trivially easy, like jaywalking, or setting off fireworks,
or finding porn on the internet, it feels legal.
But over the past three years,
legislators in nearly half of US states have passed laws to try to end the porn free for all.
The goal, they say, is to stop kids from viewing adult content by forcing porn sites to verify the ages of their users.
This episode is about how policy can backfire and raises questions about how governments can even begin regulating what kids do on the internet.
My name is Jerusalem Demses.
I'm a staff writer at The Atlantic, and this is Good on Paper,
a policy show that questions what you really know about popular narratives.
My guest today is Zeve Sanderson.
He's the executive director of the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics,
and a research associate at the School's Center on Technology Policy.
In a new study, Zeve and his co-authors find that the effects of these laws are not as policymakers intended.
While there was a 51% reduction in searches for Pornhub, which complied,
there was a nearly commensurate increase in searches for the dominant non-compliant platform, Xvideos.
We wanted to give Xvideos an opportunity to respond to this story and the claims that they are not complying with US state laws.