A Texas law requiring age verification for porn sites was temporarily blocked by U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra one day before the rule was set to take effect.
Judge Ezra granted a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking enforcement of the law after the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) joined adult performers and sites like Pornhub in a lawsuit opposing the legislation, reports Ars Technica.
A Syracuse Orange fan wearing a Pornhub t-shirt poses for cameras. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)
The groups reportedly convinced the judge that the state’s new law violates the First Amendment, and would have “a chilling effect on legally-protected speech.”
“This is a huge and important victory against the rising tide of censorship online,” Alison Boden, FSC’s executive director, said. “From the beginning, we have argued that the Texas law, and those like it, are both dangerous and unconstitutional.”
“We’re pleased that the court agreed with our view that [the law’s] true purpose is not to protect young people, but to prevent Texans from enjoying First Amendment protected expression,” Boden added. “The state’s defense of the law was not based in science or technology, but ideology and politics.”
Texas now has to wait until the lawsuit is litigated before it can enforce the anti-porn law.
The Texas law is part of a wave of similar laws in states including Utah, Arkansas, and Virginia aimed at making it more dificult for children to access internet pornography. Breitbart News recently reported that a similar law in Louisiana cut Pornhub’s traffic from the state by 80 percent:
Louisiana House Bill 142, championed by Republican State Rep. Laurie Schlegel, requires that porn sites “perform reasonable age verification methods” for visitors to be allowed to gain access.
The age verification bill was made a state law in June 2022, and since that time, mega porn website PornHub has lost 80 percent of its traffic in the Pelican State, according to Politico.
The bill has been so successful and popular that bipartisan coalitions have passed similar bills in six states, including Arkansas, Montana, Mississippi, Utah, Virginia, and Texas.
A spokesperson for Pornhub’s parent company Aylo told Ars Technica, “We are pleased with the court’s decision today, which reaffirms our position that the age verification law implemented in Texas is unconstitutional.”
The Pornhub spokesperson went on to insist that the company has “publicly supported mandatory age verification of viewers of adult content for years, but any method of age verification must preserve user privacy and safety.”
“The only solution that makes the Internet safer, preserves user privacy, and stands to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content is performing age verification at the device level,” the spokesperson added.
“We are pleased that the court recognizes the severity of compelled speech and its presence in this law that Texas has implemented,” the spokesperson said. “We are proud to fight for our industry and the performers that use it to legally earn a living, and we are glad to see the court recognize that this law is unconstitutional and would have required adult entertainers to falsely imply that their content poses health risks.”
Meanwhile, Paige Willey, the Texas Office of the Attorney General’s director of communications, told Ars Technica that the office “will move to stay the injunction and will appeal this decision.”
In addition to free speech concerns, the FSC claims the law would have exposed consumers to “significant privacy risks” by forcing adult-website visitors to show digital identification.
In his order, Judge Ezra wrote that “the state has a legitimate goal in protecting children from sexually explicit material online,” but that “does not negate this Court’s burden to ensure that the laws passed in its pursuit comport with established First Amendment doctrine.”
Ezra said that while a “preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy,” it was necessary because the court found the law unconstitutional, Ars Technica reported.
Moreover, the judge agreed with FSC and Pornhub that Texas could reach its goal of protecting children from adult content in other ways. One of which was FSC’s suggestion that parental filters are “more effective method of protecting minors.”
“There are viable and constitutional means to achieve Texas’ goal, and nothing in this order prevents the state from pursuing those means,” Judge Ezra said.
Pornhub has also been protesting a similar law in Louisiana, and has even blocked access to its site in Utah, Mississippi, and Virginia after the states passed age-verification laws.
The case is Free Speech Coalition, Inc. et al v. Colmenero in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.