CHAPTER 31-B. COMMERCIAL PUBLICATION AND

DISTRIBUTION OF MATERIAL HARMFUL TO MINORS

§2121. Enforcement of age verification by publishers and distributors of material harmful to minors

            A.(1) Any commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of the material shall be subject to civil penalties as provided in this Section if the entity fails to perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material.

            (2) The attorney general may conduct an investigation of the alleged violation and initiate a civil action in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court for the parish of East Baton Rouge on behalf of the state to assess civil penalties. Prior to asserting a cause of action, the attorney general shall provide the commercial entity with a period of time of not less than thirty days to comply with this Section.

            B.(1) Any commercial entity that violates this Section may be liable for a civil penalty, to be assessed by the court, of not more than five thousand dollars for each day of violation to be paid to the Department of Justice, in order to fund the investigation of cyber crimes involving the exploitation of children. In addition to the remedies provided in this Section, the attorney general may request and the court may impose an additional civil penalty not to exceed ten thousand dollars for each violation of this Section against any commercial entity found by the court to have knowingly failed to perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material. The civil penalty shall be paid to the Department of Justice in order to fund the investigation of cyber crimes involving the exploitation of children.

            (2) Each violation may be treated as a separate violation or may be combined into one violation at the option of the attorney general.

            (3) Any commercial entity that violates this Section may be liable to the attorney general for all costs, expenses, and fees related to investigations and proceedings associated with the violation, including attorney fees.

            (4) If the court assesses a civil penalty pursuant to this Section, the Department of Justice shall be entitled to legal interest as provided in R.S. 9:3500 from the date of imposition of the penalty until paid in full.

            C.(1) This Section shall not apply to any bona fide news or public interest broadcast, website, video, report, or event and shall not be construed to affect the rights of any news-gathering organization.

            (2) No internet service provider, or its affiliates or subsidiaries, search engine, or cloud service provider shall be held to have violated the provisions of this Section solely for providing access or connection to or from a website or other information or content on the internet or a facility, system, or network not under the control of that provider, including transmission, downloading, intermediate storage, access software, or other related capabilities, to the extent that the provider is not responsible for the creation of the content of the communication that constitutes material harmful to minors.

            D. For purposes of this Section:

            (1) "Commercial entity" means corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, limited partnerships, sole proprietorships, or other legally recognized entities.

            (2) "Distribute" means to issue, sell, give, provide, deliver, transfer, transmute, circulate, or disseminate by any means.

            (3) "Internet" means the international computer network of both federal and nonfederal interoperable packet switched data networks.

            (4) "Material harmful to minors" means all of the following:

            (a) Any material that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest.

            (b) Any of the following material that exploits, is devoted to, or principally consists of descriptions of actual, simulated, or animated display or depiction of any of the following, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors:

            (i) Pubic hair, anus, vulva, genitals, or nipple of the female breast.

            (ii) Touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses, or genitals.

            (iii) Sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act.

            (c) The material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

            (5) "Minor" means any person under the age of eighteen years.

            (6) "News-gathering organization" means any of the following:

            (a) An employee of a newspaper, news publication, or news source, printed or on an online or mobile platform, of current news and public interest, while operating as an employee as provided in this Subparagraph, who can provide documentation of employment with the newspaper, news publication, or news source.

            (b) A radio broadcast station, television broadcast station, cable television operator, wire service, or an employee thereof.

            (7) "Publish" means to communicate or make information available to another person or entity on a publicly available internet website.

            (8) "Reasonable age verification methods" means verifying that a person seeking to access the material is eighteen years of age or older by using any of the following methods:

            (a) Providing a digitized identification card as defined in R.S. 51:3211.

            (b) Requiring the person attempting to access the material to comply with a commercial age verification system that verifies in any of the following ways:

            (i) Government-issued identification.

            (ii) Any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify that the age of the person attempting to access the information is at least eighteen years of age or older.

            (9) "Substantial portion" means more than thirty-three and one-third percent of total material on a website which meets the definition of "material harmful to minors" as defined by this Section.

            Acts 2023, No. 216, §1.