Cell phone and electronic tablet manufacturers would be required to activate filters to block access to pornography under a bill that won approval in an Alabama House committee today.

The vote came after a public hearing that drew an overflow crowd to a committee room at the State House. Five people, including lobbyists representing businesses that would be affected, spoke in opposition to the bill. Four people spoke in favor of the bill. Both sides described childhood exposure to porn as a tragic problem but disagreed over whether mandating activation of device filters would help.

Rep. Chris Sells, R-Greenville, has sponsored the bill for several years but it has stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. This year the bill was sent to the House Small Business and Commerce Committee, which approved it today on an 8-4 vote. That moves it into consideration for a vote by the full House.

Sells said his bill would require that filters that are already available as part of the software on cell phones and tablets are activated by the manufacturer. Now, the filters are turned off unless the device users adjust the settings. Sells said requiring the devices to come with activated filters would prevent incidents that expose children to pornography. He said that has parallels to the laws that protect minors from the harmful effects of alcohol and tobacco.

“It boils down to what’s right and what’s wrong,” Sells said.

Melea Stepens, a family therapist who testified in favor of the bill, said she has counseled families whose children have been profoundly damaged by early exposure to hard-core pornography.

“One family brought in a 6-year-old daughter who had been exposed at a neighbor’s house accidentally on an unprotected device,” Stephens said. “After that, she started acting out on siblings and playmates and she did things to her 1-year-old little sibling I can’t even communicate with you. She started stealing iPhones from teachers’ purses at school.”

Stephens said adults have a responsibility to reduce risks for children and one way to do that is making sure that their devices and phones have activated filters.

“We wouldn’t have an illicit drug lying around and say, ‘Oh, child, I hope you don’t stumble on that and get addicted,’” Stephens said. “Because that would be gross negligence. But we have unfiltered phones and tablets that are being handed to young children and they’re going to stumble on this and it’s been compared to heroin and cocaine in the way that it impacts the brain.”

Others told the committee that they supported the intent of the bill but that it was the responsibility of parents to manage their children’s access to devices and online content. They said the bill was not needed and would pose complications for the businesses affected.

“Although well intentioned, this legislation is unnecessary as filtering technology is already available and on devices that parents can use to filter out adult content, restrict internet browsing, limit the amount of time spent on apps, and prohibit the download of mature apps, music, etc.,” said Jake Leestock, who represents CTIA, the trade association for the wireless industry. “Mandating Alabama-specific technical requirements on devices sold nationally is unworkable. Operating systems and other functionalities are not designed on a state-by-state basis. Additionally, this legislation would add significant complexity for businesses, notwithstanding best efforts to comply, and would create additional confusion for consumers at the point of activation.”

Leestock said a better solution would be to place restrictions on those creating porn and other content harmful to children, such as requiring age verification for access to websites.

Terri Williams, a regional director for AT&T Alabama, also urged the committee to reject the bill, saying it would hurt the company’s more than 200 retail stores across the state.

“The purpose behind HB298 is good and well-intended,” Williams said. “We applaud Rep. Sells and co-sponsors and others for their desire to protect minors from harmful internet content like pornography. In fact, I’m proud to work for a company like AT&T that provides content filtering technology that allows parents to protect minors. As a matter of fact, if you have an iPhone or similar device, it takes less than two minutes to block access to any website that has harmful content.”

Williams said similar legislation died in Georgia last year and died this year in Tennessee, Florida, and South Carolina. Williams said Utah is the only state that she knows has passed a similar bill.

The bill would require manufacturers to make sure that devices activated in Alabama after Jan. 1, 2024, are automatically enabled with the internet filters to block porn and other harmful material. Device users would be given a password to override the filter and allow access to a blocked website. Manufacturers could be held liable for damages if the filters were not activated or were not effective.

Joe Hass, a software engineer from Dallas, spoke in favor of the bill, calling it a common sense measure that would not be burdensome to manufacturers.

“Compared to the other features that these manufacturers do on a regular basis, for them to do this filter correctly during the activation process, would be absolutely trivial,” Hass said.

“These are software updates, not hardware updates. This is not a big deal. There’s already a default set to off. We just want the default to be on.”

Barry Matson, executive director of the Alabama District Attorneys Association, a former specialist in prosecuting internet crimes, urged the committee to pass the bill. Matson said he sees the tragic consequences of exposing children to the extreme forms of pornography that are widely available.

“This is an incredible problem in Alabama,” Matson said. “Our numbers of children, 10-year-olds, sexually assaulting 6, 7-year-olds, the numbers have gone through the roof in juvenile court.”

Matson said adults do not spend enough time protecting children from the harmful material they can access with a phone.

“A child can take a phone and move their thumb a couple of times and they can see the most vile, sex with animals, adults having sex with infants, it’s online,” Matson said. “They can see it. And they see that and they’re changed forever.”

Matson compared the problem with the plague of overdose deaths caused by fentanyl. “It is absolutely destroying lives in Alabama,” Matson said. “It’s horrible. Horrible.”

Knox Argo, a lobbyist who represents the Motion Picture Association and The Entertainment Software Association, spoke in opposition to the bill, saying it was not the answer to protecting children from porn.

“This bill won’t help us a bit,” Argo said. “Not one bit. I’m disappointed that nobody has said what the number one problem with the bill is. It’s blatantly unconstitutional.

“This bill has been in the Alabama Legislature since 2017. And I’ve been dealing with it since 2017. Now you’ve got to ask yourself, if it’s such a great bill, what are we saying about the Legislature in 2017, ‘18, ‘19, ‘20? They had good reasons. Because they knew it was not constitutional.”

Argo said the bill would run afoul of the First Amendment because what is considered obscene material is based on community standards and said those vary widely. He said no filter could effectively account for the differences in those standards. Argo said that’s why the bill has failed previously in Alabama and most other states. Argo said there are more effective ways to address the problem and pointed out that device filtering software is readily available for parents.

The committee voted along party lines, with eight Republicans voting for the bill and four Democrats opposed.

Voting for the bill were Reps. Jim Carns of Vestavia Hills, Rhett Marques of Enterprise, Ritchie Whorton of Owens Cross Roads, Brock Colvin of Guntersville, Mark Gidley of Gadsden, Phillip Rigsby of Huntsville, Mark Shirey of Mobile, and Troy Stubbs of Prattville.

Voting against the bill were Democrats Berry Forte of Eufaula, Adline Clarke of Mobile, Phillip Ensler of Montgomery, and Patrick Sellers of Birmingham.