() The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring pornographic websites to verify users are at least 18 years old.
The 6-3 ruling rejected a First Amendment challenge brought by the porn industry and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The challenge on free speech grounds tested the legality of state efforts to keep minors from viewing such material online.
What is Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton about?
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is centered around age-verification laws for porn websites.
The Texas Legislature passed H.B. 1181 in June 2023, requiring sites that host adult content to verify that users are over the age of 18. Nearly 20 other states have passed similar laws, as age verification has become a route states have used to limit children’s access to social media.
The Texas law also requires sites to post a warning that pornography is “potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function.”
The porn industry challenged the law. The Supreme Court’s task was to determine whether Texas’s age-verification law for porn websites is constitutional.
What are the arguments?
The porn industry, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, claimed the law is identical to the federal Child Online Protection Act, which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in 2002.
That legislation, which passed in 1998 but never took effect, required websites with “material harmful to minors” to restrict access to minors.
Free Speech Coalition, a nonprofit trade association for the adult industry, opposes the Texas law, and the ACLU has described age verification as “invasive.”
“Efforts to childproof the internet not only hurt everyone’s ability to access information, but often give the government far too much leeway to go after speech it doesn’t like all while failing to actually protect children,” said Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, in a January news release.
During oral arguments in January, plaintiffs argued the age verification process violates privacy and free speech, without effectively restricting minors’ access to porn.
“Pornography is historically the canary in the coal mine when it comes to censorship. Allowing the government to restrict access to sexual content will inevitably lead to more censorship and a more restricted internet for everyone,” Eidelman said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, represented by Solicitor General Aaron Nielson in court, defended the law, calling the age verification measure “non-burdensome.”
“I am confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law’s constitutionality and side with Texas in protecting minors from harmful obscene content,” Paxton said in a news release on Jan. 15.
How does this impact you?
Anyone in Texas attempting to access a website in which at least one-third of its content contains adult material will have to verify their age.
Age verification laws are in effect or have been introduced in nearly two dozen states, so Friday’s Supreme Court ruling could impact other states.
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