The Supreme Court Case Overshadowed by TikTok
And Why It's More Consequential
The Rundown↓
KNOW that Free Speech Coalition v Paxton represents the first challenge of online age verification laws in the United States.
REALIZE its implications extend beyond restricting adult content.
EXPLORE the text of the case or the audio of the oral arguments.
Details↓
Lost in a sea of TikTok coverage, on January 15, 2025 the Supreme Court heard arguments in Free Speech Coalition v Paxton. The plaintiffs, a trade association representing a collection of adult entertainment industry clients (including Pornhub), are challenging the constitutionality of a Texan law requiring age verification to access online adult content. They claim it violates an adult’s First Amendment rights by imposing burdensome barriers to access protected speech.
Seventeen states have passed similar age verification laws in the last few years, with Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina’s laws most recently coming into effect on January 1, 2025. Texas passed their law in 2023, and this is the first one of its kind to be challenged in the Supreme Court. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, made his stance clear in a November press release:
Texas has a clear interest in protecting children, and we have been successful defending this commonsense age verification law against a powerful global industry.
Critics believe such laws expose personal data and the broad language of the law could bleed into other corners of the internet. Despite the disagreements, both sides acknowledge minors should not have access to adult content. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling this summer.
Commentary↓
The Supreme Court has historically held that adult content is protected free speech, and the Free Speech Coalition’s argument is that age verification laws are an attempt not only to protect minors, but to also broadly restrict adult access.
Debate about age verification requirements has intensified following recent laws (like Australia’s social media ban) restricting teenage access to social media. Studies show that pornography, and now social media, can be especially harmful for teens and potentially addictive, but questions still remain. Is it government overreach? Will internet users lose online anonymity not only when accessing adult content, but also when using social media (Spain’s prime minister is advocating for just that)? And will these laws be used to eventually censor online (and social media) content?
In addition, the Texas law puts the burden of verification on the adult content provider. Some say rather than providing ID for every age-gated product or service (as in offline life), verification should be done at a device level (which Apple and Google have lobbied against) or through a third party ID service.
Free Speech Coalition v Paxton isn’t simply two sides of a coin. This is the nature of the complicated online world. It presents endless variables not found offline. The case represents the back and forth of many sides, ridges, and designs of multiple coins:
Online gambling sites have found ways to verify age, but with a loss of anonymity.
As we discovered, underage users can easily access adult content on sites like X. Does X fall below the 33% adult content threshold of the Texas law?
A Common Sense Media report from 2022 that said 73% of teens 17 and under had seen online porn and that 58% of those stumbled upon it accidentally.
European Union law now allows alternative app stores for Apple, with a developer just releasing a native iOS porn app.
In a previous post we pointed out that numerous mental health studies suggest porn negatively affects young people's mental health, warps their view of sexual relationships, and often leads to addiction. Billie Eilish, on the Howard Stern Show in 2021, famously commented on her adolescent* porn addiction saying,
I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn.
Protecting kids from online harms is important. And while one can appreciate the heart behind them, these laws will at best only minimize exposure. The reality is that digital media can easily be captured, stored locally, and shared outside of adult content providers.
Regardless of the outcome, as we state in “Driver’s Training for Social Media,” it comes down to personal and parental responsibility. Parents and caregivers can’t completely outsource protection to governments, corporations, social media platforms, or even parental control apps. The help is welcomed, but it takes tiring vigilance on our part. At the end of the day the goal is not simply to protect adolescents from harm, but to help them understand the dangers and… to ultimately prepare them for a lifetime of digital communication.
Postscript↓
Are you a parent looking for a guide to help reign in screen time, understand the illusions of the online world, protect your data, and set meaningful online and offline goals for your family? Check out “Driver’s Training for Social Media,” our first online course accessible with a Behind the Curtains subscription.
After posting, we added “adolescent” to note Billie Eilish’s first exposure to porn was at age 11.