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The Supreme Court of the United States on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify visitors’ ages to protect minors from sexually explicit content online.
Justices ruled 6-3 that requiring adults in Texas to verify their age does not violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, noting at least 21 other states imposed similar regulations on sexual material that could be harmful to minors online.
Texas and other states prohibit the distribution of sexually explicit content to children in brick and mortar stores, but online content remains largely unregulated.
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Lawmakers from the Lone Star State enacted a bill requiring certain commercial websites that publish sexually explicit content to verify the ages of those entering the site, which the justices upheld as constitutional, noting at least 21 other states imposed similar regulations on sexual material that could be harmful to minors.
Those who visit sexually explicit websites will need to use government-issued identification or a “commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data.”
Sites can perform verification themselves or through a third-party service.
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If website owners knowingly violate the law, the Supreme Court ruled the Texas attorney general can sue and collect a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per day that the site is non-compliant.
They can also collect an additional penalty of up to $250,000 if any minors accessed the covered sexual material as a result of the violation.
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Justices wrote in their opinion that internet access has drastically changed since 1999, when only two out of five American households had a computer.
In 2024, 95 percent of American teens had access to a smartphone, with 93 percent reporting frequent internet use.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan argued speech that is obscene for minors is often not obscene for adults.
“So adults have a constitutional right to view the very same speech that a State may prohibit for children,” Kagan wrote. “And it is a fact of life—and also of law—that adults and children do not live in hermetically sealed boxes. In preventing children from gaining access to ‘obscene for children’ speech, States sometimes take measures impeding adults from viewing it too—even though, for adults, it is constitutionally protected expression.
“But what if Texas could do better—what if Texas could achieve its interest without so interfering with adults’ constitutionally protected rights in viewing the speech H. B. 1181 covers? That is the ultimate question on which the Court and I disagree.”
Pornhub and other pornography giants have stopped service in Texas and other states where regulations are in place.
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