LISTEN: Supreme Court hears arguments on Texas law restricting access to porn sites

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court appeared open Wednesday to a Texas law aimed at blocking children from viewing online pornography, though the justices could still send it back to a lower court for more consideration of how the age verification affects free speech rights of adults.

Hear the arguments before the Supreme Court in the player above.

Texas is among more than a dozen states with such laws aimed at blocking young children and teenagers from viewing pornography. The states argue that the laws are necessary because online porn, including hardcore obscene material, has become almost instantly accessible on smartphones online.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a member of the court’s conservative majority, raised similar concerns. “Technological access to pornography has exploded, right?” he said.

The Free Speech Coalition, an adult entertainment industry trade group, says the Texas law unfairly affects adults by requiring them to submit personally identifying information online, making them vulnerable to hacking or tracking. Adult content site Pornhub has stopped operating in several states, citing technical and privacy obstacles to complying with the laws.

The Free Speech Coalition agrees that children should not view pornography, but it argues that the new law is so broadly written that it could also apply to sexual information or simulated sex scenes in movies.

The law also leaves a loophole by focusing on porn sites instead of the search engines often used to find porn, the group said in court documents. Content filtering is a better alternative to online age checks, it says.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett appeared skeptical, pointing to the growing number of ways children can get online.

“Content filtering for all the different devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult to keep up with,” said Barrett, who has seven children.

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has confronted the issue. In 1996, the court struck down parts of a law banning explicit material that can be viewed by children online. In 2004, a divided Supreme Court struck down another federal law aimed at preventing children from being exposed to pornography, but said less restrictive measures such as content filtering are constitutional.

Texas argues that technology has improved significantly in the past 20 years, allowing online platforms to quickly and easily check users’ ages with a quick photo, making it more like ID checks at brick-and-mortar stores, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1960s.

The states won in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a divided panel overturned a lower court and allowed the age verification requirement to take effect. The Supreme Court earlier rejected an urgent appeal and asked to put the age verification on hold while the legal battle continues.

Still, some of the nine justices were concerned that the lower court had not applied a strict enough legal standard to determine whether the Texas law and others like it could run afoul of the First Amendment.

“How far can a state go in terms of burdening adults with showing how old they are?” Judge Ketanji Brown asked Jackson.

Justice Elena Kagan raised concerns about a possible “contagion danger” on other laws that affect free speech, regardless of how the court rules.

Some of the justices appeared interested in the Democratic Biden administration’s position that they should send the case back to the 5th Circuit for further consideration. The court could even say that such laws, when carefully written, could pass a higher standard since everyone agrees that keeping porn away from children is a worthy goal, Deputy Attorney General Brian Fletcher said.

Other states with similar laws include Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia.

Texas law provides for fines of up to $10,000 per violation. violation, which may be raised to up to $250,000 per violation of a minor.

The court is expected to rule on the case in June.

Associated Press writer Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.