The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has upheld a Texas law requiring websites that intentionally publish “sexual material harmful to minors” to verify the user’s age.
The 6 to 3 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton was delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, writing that “The power to require age verification is within a State’s authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content.”
The case originated in 2023 after the Texas Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 1181 by Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-Plano). The law requires a website that intentionally publishes “sexual material harmful to minors” to verify the user’s age through digital identification or a third-party verification system that uses government- issued identification or a “commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of an individual.”
