Section 2. Declaration of policy.
The General Assembly finds and declares as follows:
(1) The Commonwealth has a compelling interest and duty to protect children from exposure to obscenity, child sexual abuse material and other material that is harmful to minors. ((1) amended July 20, 2024, P.L.969, No.92)
(2) The Commonwealth has a compelling interest in preventing any user from accessing obscene material and child sexual abuse material within a public school or public library setting. ((2) amended July 20, 2024, P.L.969, No.92)
(3) There is a need to balance the goal of providing free access to educationally suitable information sources on the Internet against the compelling need and duty to protect children from contact with sexual predators and from access to obscene material, child sexual abuse material and material harmful to children. ((3) amended July 20, 2024, P.L.969, No.92)
(4) It is not the intent of this act to create or impose liability on software program or Internet service providers that make available information created by third parties by treating the software or service provider as the publisher or speaker of such information. Nor should this act be construed as imposing any liability on software program or Internet service providers for creating and making available to users monitoring and screening functions that serve to restrict access to offensive material. Indeed, it is the intent of the General Assembly to minimize such liability on software program and Internet service providers in order to encourage the development and deployment of blocking and screening technologies and in order to promote the widest possible dissemination of such technologies to libraries, schools and end users.