Melea Stephens on Phones and Protecting Minors from Pornography

ALCAP President Greg Davis welcomed Melea Stephens to Priority Talk Radio to discuss Alabama Senate Bills 186 and 187. Stephens is a Licensed Counselor and is also on the Board of Directors of the National Center of Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). Their conversation centered on making phones safer for minors by protecting them from exposure to pornographic content, and these two bills are integral for this purpose.

SB186 would require that the filter that comes built into the phone already to be turned on at purchase if the buyer is a minor: “This bill would require manufacturers of… smartphones and tablets… [to] contain a filter that is enabled during the activation of the device if the user is a minor, and only allow a user with a password to deactivate or reactivate the filter.”

SB187 would require app stores to implement age verification, which is a common practice in a variety of industries: “This bill would require app store providers to verify the age of users. This bill would [also] require app store providers to affiliate minor accounts with parent accounts and obtain consent from the holder of the parent account.”

While lauding these bills as commonsense and morally good, Greg Davis and Melea Stephens recognized the fact that they are not perfect in that no legal measure can completely protect minors from unwanted exposure to pornography or willful searching of adult content. The goal, however, is to “provide one extra layer of support to protect [children’s] innocence.”

Stephens called it the “belt and suspenders” approach, and also used a car analogy. There are multiple safety measures put into place to make driving safer, even if it is impossible to make driving completely safe.

To learn more, listen here.