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The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the adult entertainment industry challenging a Texas law that mandates age verification for pornographic websites.
What Happened: The Supreme Court will review an appellate ruling that permitted the age verification law to take effect, AP News reported on Wednesday. The legal dispute is between the Free Speech Coalition, an adult entertainment industry trade association, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who signed House Bill 181 into law. The court hearing is scheduled for the fall.
Previously, in April, the Supreme Court dismissed an emergency appeal to suspend the age verification while the legal battle is ongoing. Similar laws have been enacted in other states, including Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia.
The Texas law imposes penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, which can escalate to $250,000 per violation by a minor. Last year, a federal judge halted the law's age verification requirement and health warnings, ruling that they likely contravened the Constitution. However, in March, a divided panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the age verification ruling, while upholding the health warnings ruling that adult sites cannot be compelled to publish statements they disagree with.
Why It Matters: In 2023, a report revealed 73% of teenagers had watched online pornography by the age of 17, with the average age of first exposure being just 12. The law was enacted in response to these concerns.
Adult content platform Pornhub suspended its services in Texas in March after it was sued as a response to the state's age verification law. The law requires users to either provide a government ID or use a third-party verification service to access adult content online.
Concerns over the proliferation of adult content also prompted Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., to announce a “major purge” on his social media platform X.
Image: Shutterstock/ Kirkam
This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari
Posted In: TSLA
