{"id":651,"date":"2025-06-28T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/the-supreme-court-just-upended-internet-law-and-i-have-questions\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T15:00:00","slug":"the-supreme-court-just-upended-internet-law-and-i-have-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/the-supreme-court-just-upended-internet-law-and-i-have-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court just upended internet law, and I have questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-caption=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/05\/STK453_PRIVACY_E_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,0,100,100\" \/><figcaption>\n\t\t<\/figcaption><\/p><\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Age verification is perhaps the hottest battleground for online speech, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/internet-censorship\/686042\/supreme-court-fsc-paxton-porn-age-verification-ruling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Supreme Court just settled<\/a> a pivotal question: does using it to gate adult content violate the First Amendment in the US? For <a href=\"https:\/\/hls.harvard.edu\/today\/can-texas-limit-citizens-access-to-online-content\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">roughly the past 20 years<\/a> the answer has been \u00ab\u00a0yes\u00a0\u00bb &#8211; now, as of Friday, it&rsquo;s an unambiguous \u00ab\u00a0no.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/24pdf\/23-1122_3e04.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Justice Clarence Thomas&rsquo; opinion<\/a> in <em>Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton<\/em> is relatively straightforward as Supreme Court rulings go. To summarize, its conclusion is that:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>States have a valid interest in keeping kids away from pornography<\/li>\n<li>Making people prove their ages is a valid strategy to enforce that<\/li>\n<li>Internet age verification only \u00ab\u00a0incidentally\u00a0\u00bb affects how adults can access protected speech<\/li>\n<li>The risks aren&rsquo;t meaningfully different from showing your ID at a liquor store<\/li>\n<li>Yes, the Supreme Court threw out age verification rules repeatedly in the early 2000s, but the internet of 2025 is so different the old reasoning no longer applies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Around this string of logic, you&rsquo;ll find a huge number of objections and unknowns. Many of these were laid out before the decision: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/deeplinks\/2025\/01\/five-things-know-about-supreme-court-case-texas-age-verification-law-free-speech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Electronic Frontier Foundation has<\/a> an overview of the issues, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.404media.co\/age-verification-laws-will-drag-us-back-to-the-dark-ages-of-online-porn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>404 Media<\/em> goes deeper on<\/a> the potential  \u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/analysis\/694710\/supreme-court-fsc-paxton-age-verification-questions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full story at The Verge.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Age verification is perhaps the hottest battleground for online speech, and the Supreme Court just settled a pivotal question: does [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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