The United States Supreme Court ruled on Friday to maintain a Texas law demanding websites with “harmful sexual equipment for minors” to check the age of all visitors. The Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a professional association for the adult industry, had brought a lawsuit against the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, contesting the law of the age of the State of the State.
“The power to require the verification of age is the authority of a state to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content”, Judge Clarence Thomas wrote in the advice of the court. The court took the side of 6-3 in favor of Paxton, with judges Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Kentaji Brown Jackson dissident.
Age verification in this context does not mean clicking without thinking in a box to declare that you are an adult – this means downloading government identification documents or using third -party verification platforms to prove your age.
This decision has large -scale ramifications for internet confidentiality. Eighteen states have Laws already promulgated Oblige age verification to access these websites, while six additional states have adopted legislation that has not yet taken effect. Under the law of Texas that the FSC disputed, a pornographic website is defined as having at least a third of its content considered as “harmful to minors”.
Advantage confidentiality defenders have long criticized these age checks For their potential to compromise user’s digital security, even when verification companies do not keep identification information. In some cases, these age controls are carried out via government tools, and it is not abnormal for pirates of government databases.
At a time when LGBTQ rights are under attack In the United States, activists have protested that laws like this could be used to classify non-pornographic information on the LGBTQ community, as well as basic sex education, such as “harmful sexual material for minors”. These concerns seem well founded, since the administration of President Trump has References deleted to the movements of civil rights and the history of the LGBTQ from certain government websites.
The law of origin of the Texas Age verification, HB 1181, was adopted roughly at the same time when the State imposed other legal restrictions on the LGBTQ community, in particular Limits of public drag emissions and prohibit stupid care For minors. The Drags Show law was then considered unconstitutional for violating the first amendment.
This story is developing.
