The effortless availability of pornography in every home in America would have been inconceivable twenty-five years ago. Only adult bookstores or similar venues sold such materials, and parents could more easily control what entered their homes and what material their children purchased and viewed. The internet and smartphones undercut parents, making images of all types available to children with little effort and considerable privacy. To control pornography from flowing into their homes, parents would have to cut their children off from the internet, monitor all smartphone use, and/or install filtering technologies that are difficult to use and often easily circumventable.

The States have largely stayed out of the fight against internet pornography. Yet, they have power to regulate obscene and indecent content within their state boundaries. The following provides four legislative proposals:

• While section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects the transmitters of obscene or indecent materials on the internet, states retain the power to make the original senders of such materials legally liable. 
• The States could require websites to obtain age verification if they publish or distribute indecent material to children within the state’s borders.
• The States regulate contract law and can require parental consent for creating an account on any platform, including those that distribute pornography, such as Twitter.
• The States can create right to publicity for individuals to control images of their naked bodies used for commercial purposes.