Posted on 09/01/2023 12:40:32 AM PDT by RandFan
A federal judge ruled Thursday that a Texas law requiring pornography sites to institute age-verification measures — and add prominent warning labels about the alleged dangers of porn — violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition against free-speech restrictions.
A lawsuit seeking to overturn the Texas legislation was filed Aug. 4 by the Free Speech Coalition, a group that included Pornhub’s parent company, adult industry advocacy groups and an adult performer (referred to in filings as “Jane Doe”).
Under the Texas law, which was set to go into effect Sept. 1, 2023, porn sites would have been required to use “reasonable age verification methods” to “verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older.” In addition, pornography sites would have been forced to display a “Texas Health and Human Services Warning” in at least 14-point font — one such warning was specified to read, “Pornography increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation, and child pornography” — along with a national toll-free number for people with mental health disorders. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed H.B. 1181 into law on June 12.
In the Aug. 31 ruling, Senior U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas wrote, “The Court finds that H.B. 1181 is unconstitutional on its face.” The ruling enjoined Angela Colmenero, acting attorney general of Texas, from taking any enforcement action under H.B. 1181 “pending further order or final judgment.”
“The statute is not narrowly tailored and chills the speech of Plaintiffs and adults who wish to access sexual materials,” Ezra said in the decision. “[T]he law is not narrowly tailored because it substantially regulates protected speech, is severely underinclusive, and uses overly restrictive enforcement methods.”
(Excerpt) Read more at variety.com ...
Honestly, I don’t think the age verification requirement is the major sticking point in this legislation...it is more likely the forced writing in at least size 14 font that is probably the stickler.
Just my opinion. Age verification is obviously legal, as laws currently require stores to check your ID before purchasing spray paint, cigarettes, alcohol, certain drugs, etc., but if in addition to checking your ID, the store clerk had to tell you a specific phrase, in a specific tone and volume about how sniffing paint, smoking cigarettes, and/or drinking alcohol is hazardous to your health, I believe the stores would have a solid leg on which to stand when filing a lawsuit about said law.
“Now it’s just a mouse click away.”
Funny thing about that... Porn domains have been required to incorporate “parental control triggers” for many years now. So protections are already in place, parents just need to actually make the time and effort to use them.
But instead we beg the government to become the parents of our children. This will not end well because government always oversteps their authority.
We restrict children from doing a number of things that could or would prove detrimental to them or pose risks to other citizens. Such as drinking. Or driving. This restriction is no different.
Freepers who use porn are a contradiction. You cant have it both ways, when this sick secular world understands that porn is bad, that is all you need to know. Everyone here who defends porn is admitting to using it while also identifying as conservative. You are a loser and the level of offense you gleem from that comment is the degree to which you have fallen. Hiding behind juvenile terms like liberterian does not mitigate that you are an addict. Abusing women for your lack of masculinity is just as evil as anything the left supports. Thinking women enjoy doing porn proves your profound immaturity about the opposite sex. You have no business being a parent.
Pornography:
1: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2: material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
(the pornography of violence)
Definition 3 is the one to be concerned about in the future. And/or any new definitions added later as needed to control even more content.
“For many people, any attempt to define the word pornography calls to mind the oft-quoted line from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964: “. . . I know it when I see it.” While compilers of dictionaries might wish to be granted such latitude in explaining the meaning of certain words, they are held to a higher standard. Pornography, which has been used in English since the middle of the 19th century, comes from the Greek pornographos (“writing about prostitutes”), and initially referred to visual or written matter designed to cause sexual arousal, a meaning that is still the most common one employed today. Pornography has taken on an additional, >non-sexualized, sense: one that refers to a depiction of sensational material (such as violence) in order to elicit a reaction.< The phrase “pornography of violence,” for example, began to be used in the early 1950s.”
Keep this concept in mind as religion and conservatism are now being labelled and defined as white supremacist hate speech and “violence”. They will be the next “Porn” targets by definition. How is this very real cause and effect outcome so unrecognizable to most?
BS, there have been age restrictions on alcohol, tobacco and firearms for decades. You can’t buy any of these things online without age verification either.
This is going to go all the way to SCOTUS. It’s really about applying current law to technology.
There is far more research on the physical, mental and social harms of pornographry than there was in the 60’s and 80’s to support the state’s right to regulate a harmful product. Given the billions being made, there is a strong argument to be made that this isn’t free speech, but commercial speech and subject to state regulation like any other adult products.
What does it matter? America is fallen anyway. The sheep might as well dose themselves with Soma / porn. Dear God, I hate what this country has become.
ding ding ding we have a winner. parents treating their children (0 to 17) as little adults is the problem.
their are all kinds of protections in place already.
Yep, why is it we want the government to be the parents of our children? That is a dangerous presedent to start. All the problems we have now are because the government thinks they own our children. So they indoctrinated them. At some point parents just need to be parents again.
Parents need to step up and the government needs to butt out, and we need to stop begging for them to parent for us.
Think maybe circumcised junk = messed?
Bet it does to some.
https://x.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/1768416387607810366
PornHub has now disabled its website in Texas. Sites like PornHub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children. We recently secured a major victory against PornHub and other sites that sought to block this law from taking effect. In Texas, companies cannot get away with showing porn to children. If they don’t want to comply, good riddance.
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