- The Supreme Court said age verification laws for porn websites are constitutional.
- The court rejected First Amendment arguments against age verification requirements.
- Utah is one of 24 states that have passed porn age verification laws since 2023.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring porn websites to verify the age of users, similar to statutes passed in Utah and two dozen other states across the country since 2023.
In a majority opinion joined by the court’s other conservatives, Justice Clarence Thomas rejected the argument of porn industry plaintiffs that the Texas law violated the First Amendment rights of adult users by requiring them to share personal information to view explicit content.
“The power to verify age is part of the power to prevent children from accessing speech that is obscene to them,” Thomas wrote. “Because accessing material obscene to minors without verifying one’s age is not constitutionally protected, any burden (the statute) imposes on protected activity is only incidental.”
For the court’s three liberal judges in the dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argued that the Texas law does impose a direct, content-based restriction on adults’ access to protected speech, which can only be justified by being narrowly tailored to meet a compelling government interest.
The ruling was received as a victory by the 24 Republican states that have passed legislation like that in Texas over the past two years. Beginning with Louisiana, and quickly followed by Utah, state legislatures voted to hold porn sites liable if they did not verify users’ age through “any commercially reasonable method.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a post on X that the ruling was a “big win for protecting kids online.” The governor has spearheaded a number of efforts in recent years to increase parental control over their children’s online activity and to restrict access to certain websites for minors.
“It validates Utah’s efforts to shield minors from harmful content — and we’re just getting started," Cox said. “We’ll keep fighting to keep our kids safe.”
Friday’s ruling was criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Free Speech Coalition, the name adopted by the group of pornography websites suing the state of Texas.
By upholding the Texas law, the Supreme Court went against decades of court precedent that treated porn as free speech, they argued. And it did so by allowing a Texas law that ties sensitive personal information to the viewing of sexual content.
“As it has been throughout history, pornography is once again the canary in the coal mine of free expression,” said Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition. “The government should not have the right to demand that we sacrifice our privacy and security to use the internet.”
What does it mean for Utah’s porn law?
Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, the sponsor of the Utah legislation — which passed both chambers of the Legislature unanimously — said the Supreme Court decision recognizes how much the porn industry has changed in the internet era as well as the harmful effects of pornography on minors.
It is already illegal for minors to be shown obscene materials in all fifty states. But there has not been the political or judicial will to enforce such restrictions over free speech concerns until now, Weiler said.
Technological advances have made age verification more feasible even as it has made more pernicious forms of pornography more accessible to children of all ages, he said.
“The stuff that our 11 and 12 and 13 year old kids are seeing today is just shockingly disgusting,” Weiler said. “And so I think it’s high time that the states and the courts recognize that this material is harmful and the kids need to be protected.”
One common pushback toward Weiler’s bill has been that it is parents’ responsibility, not the state’s, to monitor what websites children are using. Weiler said he agrees, but points out that there are many areas where parental responsibility overlaps with the state’s interest in protecting young people.
Adults have been able to buy alcohol, tobacco and vapes online for over a decade, Weiler points out, and during that time they have also been required to prove their age by providing identifying information on their drivers license and credit cards. Now it is no different for pornography.
“We have placed that burden on society in some respects to protect children. But when it came to pornography, people were like, ‘Oh, gee, what do we do now?’” Weiler said. “And so I’m really glad to see a voice of reason from at least six justices on the Supreme Court.”
This ruling all but ensures that Utah’s law will continue to be enforced, Weiler said. After the Utah law took effect in May 2023, Pornhub announced it would cut off access to their website — one of the most popular porn sites in the world — in the state of Utah. Two years later, the site remains blocked for most Utahns.