WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed open to a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography, but the justices could still send it back to a lower court for further consideration of how the age verification measure affects adults’ free-speech rights.
The law, which requires online platforms to verify users’ ages through facial recognition technology or other means, is designed to keep children from accessing explicit content. But the Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, argues that the law wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online, making it vulnerable to hacking or tracking.
Chief Justice John Roberts expressed concerns about the law, saying, “Technologically, access to pornography has exploded.” However, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that “content filtering for all those different devices is difficult to keep up with,” and that the state’s argument that technology has improved in 20 years is “immaterial” because “the number of ways kids can get online is growing exponentially.”
The court previously considered similar laws in 1996 and 2004, and the current case is another test of the government’s ability to regulate online content. Texas and 11 other states have enacted similar laws, but the Free Speech Coalition argues that these laws could also stifle free speech by restricting access to sexual education content or simulated sex scenes in movies.
The court is expected to decide the case by June.