Five Things to Know about the Supreme Court Case on Texas’ Age Verification Law, Free Speech Coalition v Paxton

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The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in a case that will determine whether states can violate adults’ First Amendment rights to access sexual content online by requiring them to verify their age.  

The case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, could have far-reaching effects for every internet users’ free speech, anonymity, and privacy rights. The Supreme Court will decide whether a Texas law, HB1181, is constitutional. HB 1811 requires a huge swath of websites—many that would likely not consider themselves adult content websites—to implement age verification.  

The plaintiff in this case is the Free Speech Coalition, the nonprofit non-partisan trade association for the adult industry, and the Defendant is Texas, represented by Ken Paxton, the state’s Attorney General. But this case is about much more than adult content or the adult content industry. State and federal lawmakers across the country have recently turned to ill-conceived, unconstitutional, and dangerous censorship legislation that would force websites to determine the identity of users before allowing them access to protected speech—in some cases, social media. If the Supreme Court were to side with Texas, it would open the door to a slew of state laws that frustrate internet users’ First Amendment rights and make them less secure online. Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming arguments, and why it’s critical for the Supreme Court to get this case right.

1. Adult Content is Protected Speech, and It Violates the First Amendment for a State to Require Age-Verification to Access It.  

Under U.S. law, adult content is protected speech. Under the Constitution and a history of legal precedent, a legal restriction on access to protected speech must pass a very high bar. Requiring invasive age verification to access protected speech online simply does not pass that test. Here’s why: 

While other laws prohibit the sale of adult content to minors and result in age verification via a gove

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