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New Tech Doesn’t Solve Old Problems With Age-Gating the Internet

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, and TechFreedom urged the Supreme Court today to strike down HB 1181, a Texas law that unconstitutionally restricts adults’ access to sexual content online by requiring them to verify their age. 

Under HB 1181, signed into law last year, any website that Texas decides is composed of “one-third” or more of “sexual material harmful to minors” is forced to collect age-verifying personal information from all visitors. When the Supreme Court reviews a case challenging the law in its next term, its ruling could have major consequences for the freedom of adults to safely and anonymously access protected speech online. 

"Texas’ age verification law robs internet users of anonymity, exposes them to privacy and security risks, and blocks some adults entirely from accessing sexual content that’s protected under the First Amendment,” said EFF Staff Attorney Lisa Femia. “Applying longstanding Supreme Court precedents, other courts have consistently held that similar age verification laws are unconstitutional. To protect freedom of speech online, the Supreme Court should clearly reaffirm those correct decisions here.”  

In a flawed ruling last year, the Fifth Circuit of Appeals upheld the Texas law, diverging from decades of legal precedent that correctly recognized online ID mandates as imposing greater burdens on our First Amendment rights than in-person age checks. As EFF explains in its friend-of-the-court brief, there is nothing about HB 1181 or advances in technology that have lessened the harms the law’s age verification mandate imposes on adults wishing to exercise their constitutional rights. 

First, the Texas law forces adults to submit personal information over the internet to access entire websites, not just specific sexual materials. Second, compliance with the law will require websites to retain this information, exposing their users to a variety of anonymity, privacy, and security risks not present when briefly flashing an ID card to a cashier. Third, while sharing many of the same burdens as document-based age verification, newer technologies like “age estimation” introduce their own problems—and are unlikely to satisfy the requirements of HB 1181 anyway. 

"Sexual freedom is a fundamental human right critical to human dignity and liberty," said Ricci Levy, CEO of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. "By requiring invasive age verification, this law chills protected speech and violates the rights of consenting adults to access lawful sexual content online.” 

Today’s friend-of-the-court brief is only the latest entry in EFF’s long history of fighting for freedom of speech online. In 1997, EFF participated as both plaintiff and co-counsel in ACLU v. Reno, the landmark Supreme Court case that established speech on the internet as meriting the highest standard of constitutional protection. And in the last year alone, EFF has urged courts to reject state censorship, throw out a sweeping ban on free expression, and stop the government from making editorial decisions about content on social media. 

For the brief: https://www.eff.org/document/fsc-v-paxton-eff-amicus-brief

For more on HB 1181: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/eff-urges-supreme-court-reject-texas-speech-chilling-age-verification-law

Contact:  LisaFemiaStaff Attorneylfemia@eff.org

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