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The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law that requires adults to verify their age before viewing pornographic websites on Friday, maintaining a law intended to protect minors from viewing explicit sites.
While raising concerns about children accessing pornographic content online, the justices said Texas’s law did not meet “strict scrutiny” – meaning it was too broad and did not have enough of a “compelling interest” to restrict a form of speech.
“It only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.
Hoping to reduce the number of children viewing pornographic content online, Texas passed a law requiring websites with more than one-third sexual material to verify a user’s age through identification, such as a government ID.
But the law also required those websites to issue “health” warnings subject to scientific skepticism – such as the claim that pornography can “harm human brain development.”
Justices appeared divided during oral arguments, trying to advocate for laws that protect children while also raising concerns with the broadness of Texas’s law.
Lawyers for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told the justices that the state had tried to use filtering technology to prevent children from accessing explicit websites, but that it wasn’t sufficient.
Justices appeared sympathetic to that argument. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a mother to seven children, shared her own firsthand experience trying to protect her children in the age of the internet.
“Kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones, computers. Let me just say that content filtering for all those different devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult to keep up with,” Barrett said.
That concern is ultimately what’s led at leats 18 other states to enact age-verification laws similar to Texas.
But, Free Speech Coalition, a trade association representing the adult entertainment industry, argued that Texas’s law goes too far and impedes the First Amendment by restricting adults’ access. Lawyers for the group also raised concerns about privacy protection when people are required to submit their government-issued I.D.
Justices, especially the conservative majority, seemed less inclined to believe their argument.
“When I try to buy wine at a supermarket, they require me to show an ID,” Justice Samuel Alito said, adding, “I’m flattered by it.”
A lawyer for the Biden administration, who initially inherited the case, agreed that there is a need to protect children but that Texas had not met strict scrutiny. He indicated that Congress or other states could enact different laws with a similar purpose.
The case was Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton.
