Attorney General Ken Paxton scored a major victory at the Supreme Court of the United States, successfully defending a Texas law that requires pornography companies to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from obscene online material.
“This is a major victory for children, parents, and the ability of states to protect minors from the damaging effects of online pornography,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Companies have no right to expose children to pornography and must institute reasonable age verification measures. I will continue to enforce the law against any organization that refuses to take the necessary steps to protect minors from explicit materials.”
In 2023, pornography distributors sued Texas to stop the law. However, Attorney General Paxton won a major victory allowing Texas to enforce the statute while litigation continued. Now the Supreme Court has ruled that Texas’s age verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment and will remain in effect. Attorney General Paxton has already been aggressively enforcing the law, suing Aylo Global Entertainment, the operator of pornography websites including Pornhub. Instead of protecting children by instituting the required age verification, Pornhub opted to shut down its site entirely in Texas.
Companies violating the age verification requirements will be subject to fines of up to $10,000 per day, an additional $10,000 per day if the corporation illegally retains identifying information, and $250,000 if a child is exposed to pornographic content due to not properly verifying a user’s age.
To read the opinion, click here.