Image by IFONNX Toys, from Unsplash

Proposed Texas Law Could Limit Online Access To Sex Toys

• Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
• Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

The Texas state legislature debates a new bill that requires online customers to prove their age when making purchases of sex toys.

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

• Senator Angela Paxton, wife of AG Ken Paxton, introduced the bill.
• Violations carry a $5,000 fine and a Class A misdemeanor charge.
• Critics say it risks privacy and could expose buyers to government scrutiny.

The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 3003 , was introduced by Senator Angela Paxton, who is the wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The proposed bill targets underage online purchases of adult products through either government ID checks or age verification conducted by third-party services.

The proposed bill resembles recent age-verification laws that have spread throughout the United States particularly in Southern regions, as noted by AOL . The legislation applies to explicit content websites by establishing age verification protocols for users to access mature material. Critics maintain that these rules prove both unproductive and overly intrusive.

Through her work as a journalist and author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy Hallie Lieberman faced the practical challenges of restrictive sex toy laws that existed in Texas, as noted by 404 Media .

Retailers in the early 2000s needed to present vibrators as medical tools because the state required it under the “six dildo” regulation. Even though this law remains in force it no longer has any practical application. Lieberman thinks that when SB 3003 becomes law the industry will develop new strategies to circumvent age restrictions, as reported by 404 Media.

“I can see something like that happening again, with people saying on their sex toy store websites that vibrators are for back massage and butt plugs are for rectal strengthening,” Lieberman said, as reported by 404 Media.

“It’s similar to how sex toys were marketed in the early 20th century to get around obscenity laws and the Comstock Act,” she added.

The bill’s opponents maintain that age-verification systems establish pointless obstacles for adults and simultaneously endanger individual privacy rights.

The process of uploading government IDs for sex toy purchases exposes customers to safety threats during a period where LGBTQ+ rights face growing hostility from politicians. “The government should not have a record of what sex toys we buy,” Lieberman emphasized, reported 404 Media.

“Imagine you’re a school teacher at a public school in Texas and there’s a record you purchased a sex toy designed for queer people in a state where a parental bill of rights bill was just passed prohibiting discussion of sexual orientation in schools,” she added.

404 Media notes that Texas state representatives have persistently attempted to regulate the availability of sex toys. In late 2024, The Austin Chronicle reported that another bill sought to establish “sexually oriented businesses” classification for retailers which would have forced Walmart and CVS to eliminate their vibrator product lines.

SB 3003 includes provisions that would establish Class A misdemeanor charges along with $5,000 maximum fines for each violation after its possible enactment. 404 Media reports that Paxton has not commented on the bill.

Photo by Nicole Saavedra on Unsplash

OpenAI Launches 4o Image Generation To Produce More Realistic Images

• Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
• Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

OpenAI launched its most advanced image generation tool into its GPT-4o model this Tuesday. The company claims the new o4 image generation can produce more realistic and useful images, and performs better than previous DALL·E 3 models. The new AI tool has started to roll out to all users globally, including free accounts..

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

• OpenAI launches new image generator in GPT-4o, now available to free and paid users worldwide.
• The tool creates realistic images, infographics, comic strips, and paintings using detailed prompts.
• The company implemented safety measures to block inappropriate content and track the images.

According to the information shared by OpenAI on its website , the new tool can create infographics, simulate paintings, create comic strips, and generate photorealistic images. The new tool also includes features like processing images for inspiration and handling up to 20 objects per image.

“GPT‑4o image generation excels at accurately rendering text, precisely following prompts, and leveraging 4o’s inherent knowledge base and chat context—including transforming uploaded images or using them as visual inspiration,” states the document.

The company shared multiple images—on its website and on social media—to showcase the image’s capacities and the results it generated from each prompt.

4o image generation has arrived. It’s beginning to roll out today in ChatGPT and Sora to all Plus, Pro, Team, and Free users. pic.twitter.com/pFXDzKhh2t — OpenAI (@OpenAI) March 25, 2025

OpenAI also acknowledged the AI tool’s limitations and assured that its team will optimize the tool after its launch phase. The company also addressed the risks of the use of this advanced tool, assuring that they will block any request for sexual content and that all images will contain C2PA⁠ metadata—the information to track and verify their origin.

“When images of real people are in context, we have heightened restrictions regarding what kind of imagery can be created, with particularly robust safeguards around nudity and graphic violence,” said OpenAI.

While advanced tools to generate realistic AI images can provide multiple benefits and good uses, as the ones mentioned by OpenAI,— video game development, advertising, and creative experiences—the risks related to the use of these advanced technologies are also evolving.

Malicious actors across the globe have already been relying on other realistic AI image generators for deepfake scams and extortion. Google recently reported to the Australian government over 250 complaints of the use of Gemini for terrorism and child abuse material . In February, the United Kingdom became the first country to criminalize AI-generated child abuse tools.