Supreme Court upholds Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing pornography online

Screenshot of Pornhub | Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law aimed at blocking children from seeing online pornography. Nearly half of the states have passed similar laws requiring adult websites users verify users’ ages to access pornographic material. The laws come as smartphones and other devices make it easier to access online porn, including hardcore obscene material. The court split along ideological lines in the 6-3 ruling. It was a loss for the Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group that challenged the Texas law. Th majority opinion, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, found the measure didn’t seriously restrict adults’ free-speech rights. “Adults have the right to access speech obscene only to minors … but adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification,” he wrote. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the court should have used a higher legal standard in weighing whether the law creates free-speech problems. Pornhub, one of the world’s busiest websites, has stopped operating in several states, including Texas and Idaho, citing the technical and privacy hurdles in complying with the laws. RELATED | Supreme Court seems open to age checks for online porn, though some free-speech questions remain Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, celebrated the ruling. “Companies have no right to expose children to pornography and must institute reasonable age verification measures,” he said. The decision could pave the way for more states to adopt similar laws, the group National Center on Sexual Exploitation said. While the Free Speech Coalition agreed that children shouldn’t be seeing porn, it said the law puts an unfair free-speech burden on adults by requiring them to submit personal information that could be vulnerable to hacking or tracking. RELATED | Idaho lawmakers want to let parents sue over online porn available to minors The age verification requirements fall on websites that have a certain amount of sexual material, not search engines or social-media sites that can be used to find it. Samir Jain, vice president of policy at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology, said that age verification requirements raise serious privacy and free-expression concerns. The court’s decision “overturns decades of precedent and has the potential to upend access to First Amendment-protected speech on the internet for everyone, children and adults alike.” In 1996, the Supreme Court struck down parts of a law banning explicit material viewable by kids online. A divided court also ruled against a different federal law aimed at stopping kids from being exposed to porn in 2004 but said less restrictive measures like content filtering are constitutional. RELATED | VPN searches, demand spiked in Idaho this summer. Here’s the likely X-rated reason Texas argues that technology has improved significantly in the last 20 years, allowing online platforms to easily check users’ ages with a quick picture. Those requirements are more like ID checks at brick-and-mortar adult stores that were upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1960s, the state said. District courts initially blocked laws in Indiana and Tennessee as well as Texas, but appeals courts reversed the decisions and let the laws take effect.The post Supreme Court upholds Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing pornography online appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com