The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The plaintiff in a lawsuit alleging that cam platform Chaturbate violated Kansas’ age verification law has voluntarily dismissed that case, while continuing to pursue a related complaint involving another adult website.
Last year, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), a conservative anti-pornography organization, filed lawsuits against four adult sites on behalf of a 14-year-old Kansas resident and the teen’s mother. The suits alleged that the minor was able to access content on the platforms without any form of age verification.
Last month, a federal judge dismissed two of the lawsuits, citing a lack of jurisdiction. The ruling could still be appealed.
A third case targeted Multi Media LLC, the company that operates Chaturbate. In that matter, the judge granted the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration and placed the case on hold while arbitration proceeded. Then, on March 4, the plaintiff filed a notice of dismissal, bringing that action to an end.
The fourth lawsuit originally named Techpump Solutions SL, which the complaint described as the operator of SuperPorn.com. Last week, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint that instead identifies Pump Lab SL as the site’s current owner and operator.
The revised complaint introduces new arguments aimed at establishing jurisdiction. In one of the previously dismissed cases, the judge concluded that the plaintiff had not demonstrated that the website “purposefully directed its activities at Kansas.” According to industry attorney Corey Silverstein, the amended filing attempts to address that issue.
“The new complaint is trying to do more than say, ‘A Kansan could reach the site,’” Silverstein said. “It is trying to say, ‘This company specifically aimed parts of its business at Kansas’ — through geotargeting, curated U.S. content, regional content delivery, cookies and ad monetization tied to Kansas users. In plain English, the plaintiff is no longer arguing that the website was merely on the internet; the plaintiff is arguing that the company was steering the website into Kansas on purpose.”
Silverstein added that whether the updated argument will ultimately establish jurisdiction will likely depend on the available evidence rather than the legal framing alone.
“This is a smarter and more developed jurisdictional theory than the one the judge already rejected, because it tries to answer the court’s central concern: Where is the evidence of deliberate targeting of Kansas itself?” Silverstein explained. “If the plaintiff can back up the allegations that the defendant actually selected regional CDN points, knowingly used geolocation tied to Kansas and commercially exploited Kansas users in a state-specific way, the argument is stronger.”
He also noted that if those claims ultimately resemble a broader argument that the site was simply accessible online and happened to be used by someone in Kansas, the court could reach the same conclusion as before.
Meanwhile, the state of Kansas has filed its own lawsuit against SARJ LLC, alleging that the company’s adult websites — including metart.com, sexart.com and vivthomas.com — failed to implement age verification requirements established under state law. SARJ has argued that the same jurisdictional issues that led to the dismissal of two of the NCOSE-backed lawsuits should also apply in its case. Whether the court will apply the same legal reasoning to a lawsuit brought by the state remains to be determined, and the earlier dismissals could still be appealed.
The Free Speech Coalition described last month’s dismissals as “an important victory against state laws enforced by private rights of action,” while also encouraging its members to comply with all applicable laws.
