The Supreme Court decides not to intervene in the implementation of age-verification measures for adult websites.
In Texas, a law mandating websites with significant amounts of content deemed harmful to minors to verify user ages has sparked controversy. Opponents argue that the law also compels adults to identify themselves before accessing adult material, thereby infringing on their online free speech rights.
The adult entertainment industry trade group has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court, seeking a temporary stay of the law while the case is reviewed. The main appeal is still pending.
No reason was given by the Supreme Court for its decision on Tuesday, as is typical with cases in their emergency docket. No recorded dissents either.
The emergency request came after the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals' 2-1 ruling last month, which maintained that Texas had a legitimate interest in protecting minors from exposure to pornography and allowed the law to go into effect.
In contrast to the Supreme Court's 1997 unanimous decision on a federal law aimed at protecting minors from indecent online material, which was invalidated due to its First Amendment implications for adults, the 5th Circuit based their decision on a 1968 Supreme Court ruling that upheld New York's ban on the distribution of explicit content to minors.
"The record shows that the negative effects of access to pornography on children are extensive," the appeals court stated. "Given the difficulty of determining a website visitor's age, any attempt to identify them necessarily involves adults in the process."
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Source: edition.cnn.com
