The Supreme Court has sided with Texas in the fight to enact a new state law requiring porn platforms to verify its users are legal adults. In one of its flurry of decisions released Friday, the Court stood by the 2023 law, which requires users of sites containing “sexual material harmful to minors” to prove they are over 18 by uploading their government-issued ID. A group representing the porn industry sued to block the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment rights of porn site users by restricting their access to content that should be protected as free speech. However, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that existing measures to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content, such as parental controls, have been ineffective. As with many hot-button rulings this session, the decision fell along ideological lines, with the conservative-majority court ruling 6-3 to uphold the law. Texas is one of 19 states—most of them Republican-led—with age verification laws in place. Penning the dissent, liberal Justice Elena Kagan expressed concern that the ruling would inadvertently restrict adult users’ First Amendment right to access the sites. Adult entertainment giant PornHub has already disabled its platform in most states with age-verification laws, citing similar concerns to Kagan.
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