Supreme Court Upholds Age Verification For Adult Sites

Among other terrible rulings yesterday, the increasingly reactionary Supreme Court of the United States upheld Texas' age verification laws for porn sites (and by extension, by several other states with similar laws as well).  As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports:

Today’s decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is a direct blow to the free speech rights of adults. The Court ruled that “no person—adult or child—has a First Amendment right to access speech that is obscene to minors without first submitting proof of age.” This ruling allows states to enact onerous age-verification rules that will block adults from accessing lawful speech, curtail their ability to be anonymous, and jeopardize their data security and privacy. These are real and immense burdens on adults, and the Court was wrong to ignore them in upholding Texas’ law.  

Of course, this ruling is relatively narrow, at least for now:

Importantly, the Court's reasoning applies only to age-verification rules for certain sexual material, and not to age limits in general. We will continue to fight against age restrictions on online access more broadly, such as on social media and specific online features.  

But it still sets a very questionable precedent at best, and we know that it won't stop there without a fight.  Twenty-One Debunked of course vehemently opposes the use of mandatory age verification in general (including, but not limited to, social media platforms) on First Amendment grounds, youth rights grounds, and cybersecurity grounds as well.  Stay tuned, because this fight is NOT over!