First design
Site Theme
The U. S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to Texas law requiring age verification on sites. A list of orders released this morning shows that the court has granted a petition for certiorari filed through the Free Speech Coalition, an adult industry lobbying group. .
In March, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Texas can simply continue to apply the law while litigation continues. In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth Circuit judges wrote that “the age verification requirement is rationally tied to the government’s valid interest in preventing minors from accessing pornography. Therefore, the age verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment. “
The dissenting ruling criticized the Fifth Circuit majority for revising the law on the popular “rational basis” rather than a stricter review. The Supreme Court “has relentlessly implemented strict scrutiny of content-based regulations that restrict adult access to speech. “”, Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote at the time.
Although the majority of the Fifth Circuit upheld the age verification rule, it also held that the requirement to demonstrate physical fitness warnings on pornography “unconstitutionally compels to speak up” and be enforced.
Although the Supreme Court may simply overturn the age verification law, it is now being implemented. In April, the Supreme Court rejected a request to temporarily block the Texas law.
After squandering that April ruling, the Free Speech Coalition said, “[We] remain hopeful that the Supreme Court will grant our petition for certiorari and reaffirm its long list of instances that apply strict scrutiny to content-based restrictions on speech, such as those in Texas law that we have challenged.
The Texas law, which went into effect in September 2023, applies to websites with more than one-third of the content “that is destructive sexual curtaining for minors. “These websites will have to “use moderate methods of age verification” to restrict their access. content to adults.
In February 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleged in a lawsuit that Pornhub owner Aylo (formerly MindGeek) violated the law. Pornhub shut down its service in Texas after the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and disappeared in other states in reaction to similar age laws.
The Free Speech Coalition’s petition for certiorari states that the Supreme Court “has continually held that states would conceivably limit minors’ access to sexual material, but that such limitations will face strict scrutiny if they prevent adults’ access to constitutionally protected material. “discourse”. The organization asked the court to determine whether the Fifth Circuit “erred in law by applying a rational review to a law that limits adult access to protected speech, rather than a strict review as this Court and other circuits have done. “
“While purportedly seeking to restrict minors’ access to sexual content online, the law imposes significant restrictions on adult access to constitutional expression,” the petition states. “What’s vitally important here is that each and every user, adding adults, will have to submit personally identifiable data to access intimate and sensitive content on a medium (the internet) that raises unique security and privacy concerns. “
Join Ars Orbital Transmission mail to receive weekly updates in your inbox. Sign up →