The Supreme Court ruled today on Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton. This case is about whether states may require age verification for internet pornography websites.

Jennifer Huddleston, senior fellow in tech policy at the Cato Institute, issued the following statement in response to today’s ruling:

“Today’s decision affirmed the Fifth Circuit’s upholding of a Texas law that requires age verification around access to sexual content that is considered obscene to minors.

This decision should be considered in the context of the specific type of content, sexual content that is obscene to minors, while lower courts are still considering the issue of broader age verification laws for social media or other internet content. If expanded to broader areas of the internet like social media, this decision could significantly impact the extremely beneficial uses of this technology for free expression by both young people and adults.”

You can view Huddleston’s past work on the topic below:

If you’d like to speak with Huddleston about the case, please reach out to mmiller@​cato.​org.