Supreme Court will review Texas law requiring age verification on porn sites

Law that requires porn sites to verify user ages faces First Amendment challenge.

See full article...

 

[mrkite77]

Knowing the SC, they'll probably rule that the 1st amendment doesn't apply to americans.

 

[thrillgore]

 

[Psyborgue]

Data breaches will make this kind of thing unpopular. Just saying.

 

[Thad Boyd]

Knowing the SC, they'll probably rule that the 1st amendment doesn't apply to americans.

I mean, this is a terrible court, but they literally just ruled against a Texas social media law on First Amendment grounds yesterday. The article is still on the front page, for God's sake.

Supreme Court vacates rulings on Texas and Florida social media laws

Supreme Court remands two cases, saying lower courts didn't do full analysis.

arstechnica.com

 

[Happy Medium]

Knowing the SC, they'll probably rule that the 1st amendment doesn't apply to americans.

No, as we all know the Bill of Rights stated that Corporations were appointed by the white Christian god of the United State to be the only people for whom those Rights apply to. So I expect a 6:3 decision by our current Supreme Court "originalists" to redefine citizenship as only applying to the corporations. /s (but unfortunately Republicans don't understand sarcasm so I'm presuming that will actually be the ruling).

 

[DarkLogix]

Data breaches will make this kind of thing unpopular. Just saying.

Get with the data exfiltration already then.

 

[Thad Boyd]

No, as we all know the Bill of Rights stated that Corporations were appointed by the white Christian god of the United State to be the only people for whom those Rights apply to. So I expect a 6:3 decision by our current Supreme Court "originalists" to redefine citizenship as only applying to the corporations. /s (but unfortunately Republicans don't understand sarcasm so I'm presuming that will actually be the ruling).

I'm expecting an 8-1 or 7-2 here. The conservatives, as you say, are mostly strong on corporations' First Amendment rights, while the liberals will be persuaded by the privacy concerns inherent in age verification.

There's maybe a little wiggle room in that this concerns porn and historically the court has allowed tighter restrictions on minors' access to sexual content than on other kinds of speech. But I think there's going to be a bipartisan majority on this one, and I think the dissents will be on the far-right, not the left.

 

[Mordics]

I mean, this is a terrible court, but they literally just ruled against a Texas social media law on First Amendment grounds yesterday. The article is still on the front page, for God's sake.

Supreme Court vacates rulings on Texas and Florida social media laws

Supreme Court remands two cases, saying lower courts didn't do full analysis.

arstechnica.com

They vacated the 11th circuit ruling, which ruled the Florida law similar to the Texas social media law was unconstitutional, along with the 5th circuit ruling that upheld the Texas law. So if they ruled against the Texas law, then they ruled for the same type of law in Florida.

Really, to say the ruled against the Texas law is inaccurate. They provided some additional guidance, and different Justices provided wildly different guidance, and sent it back to the lower courts. They didn't rule for or against anyone.

 

[mrkite77]

I mean, this is a terrible court, but they literally just ruled against a Texas social media law on First Amendment grounds yesterday. The article is still on the front page, for God's sake.

Supreme Court vacates rulings on Texas and Florida social media laws

Supreme Court remands two cases, saying lower courts didn't do full analysis.

arstechnica.com

No.. they punted it.

 

[Psyborgue]

I mean, this is a terrible court, but they literally just ruled against a Texas social media law

Yean but this one has boobies.

Get with the data exfiltration already then.

Would be kind of an obvious suspect, don't you think? I just put ideas out there.

 

[msawzall]

Better hurry up. The cows are getting nervous.

 

[star-strewn]

I mean, this is a terrible court, but they literally just ruled against a Texas social media law on First Amendment grounds yesterday. The article is still on the front page, for God's sake.

Supreme Court vacates rulings on Texas and Florida social media laws

Supreme Court remands two cases, saying lower courts didn't do full analysis.

arstechnica.com

Yes, but moderating content on a social media site was a slam-dunk case of not being able to compel speech. This pornography case crosses into speech that many conservatives feel is valueless and morally repugnant in its entirety, thus not deserving of protection. I wouldn't be surprised if obscenity laws made a comeback under this SCOTUS.

 

[DarkLogix]

Yean but this one has boobies.

Would be kind of an obvious suspect, don't you think? I just put ideas out there.

Change your name to Keyser Söze then do it.

 

[ZippyPeanut]

Meh,... Texans aren't missing anything. Pornhub doesn't have a goat-fucking category.

 

[uesc_marathon]

View attachment 84423

I am amazed to find that unlike most block quotes in this format from AZquotes or pretty much any website, this man actually said this thing being attributed to him.
Straight Through the Heart: How the Liberals Abandoned the Just Society (Harper and Collins: 1995), p.243

 

[uesc_marathon]

Meh,... Texans aren't missing anything. Pornhub doesn't have a goat-fucking category.

That's just mean-spirited.
Texas' livestock industry has way more cattle than goats.

 

[gungrave]

"the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in preventing minors' access to pornography. Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment."

Good intention doesn't justify bad policies or unconstitutional laws.

 

[Thad Boyd]

Whooosh! I think you missed my (extremely bitter, upset at our unfairly packed SC taking away my children's' rights) point, though your prediction is (hopefully) correct at least with the way the court has been leaning this year.

If your point was something other than "this Supreme Court is bad, therefore their ruling in this specific instance will be bad," then yes, I missed it.

 

[FlameOfUdun]

Everything's bigger in Texas. Except thought.

 

[Thad Boyd]

It's sad that the main political argument against these age verification laws is the right-wing strawman of "freedom of speech", rather than the very real security disasters that these laws will inevitably create.

I mean, the free speech argument absolutely isn't a strawman, or right-wing, but the privacy and security risks inherent in age verification are also very definitely at play in this case.

 

[Pooga]

TFA:
The dissenting judge faulted the 5th Circuit majority for reviewing the law under the "rational-basis" standard instead of the more stringent strict scrutiny. The Supreme Court "has unswervingly applied strict scrutiny to content-based regulations that limit adults' access to protected speech," Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote at the time.

Mmm, yeah... Considering that the parts of the court that previously "unswervingly" applied "originalism" and/or "textualism" to justify overturning decades of precedent have just ditched all that (again) that to pave the way for a Trump dictatorship, I no longer have any faith that this court will follow even their own precedent if ignoring it furthers their authoritarian goals.

 

[DarkLogix]

I mean, the free speech argument absolutely isn't a strawman, or right-wing, but the privacy and security risks inherent in age verification are also very definitely at play in this case.

If only the founders had the foresight to put freedom of privacy in the bill of rights.

I mean they were close with the 4th.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But they hadn't considered the digital landscape of today that enables vacuuming up info and the massive data hordes that would be created.

 

[Unremarkable]

Paxton's brief opposing certiorari said the "First Amendment does not allow even adults to access obscenity"

Oh yes this definitely sounds like someone we want to have the keys to a database full of names, addresses, and photographs of everyone who visits bad and wrong websites.

 

[Pishaw]

Good intention doesn't justify bad policies or unconstitutional laws.

Good intentions? From Ken Paxton and the republicans? Fucking please.

This has nothing to do with porn or the 1st. Amendment. This is republicans parading around about how they are trying to protect children at the same time they're cutting education budgets and reducing food assistance to those children. Everyone involved knows this entire thing is just bullshit from top to bottom, yet they are more than willing to waste time and money on it.

Meanwhile, they can't even keep peoples lights on 24 hours a day. It's yet another example of life under the fucking Taliban.

 

[Thad Boyd]

If only the founders had the foresight to put freedom of privacy in the bill of rights.

I mean they were close with the 4th.

And the 9th's been interpreted for the past 70 years or so to include some measure of a right to privacy, but the conservatives are gunning for that one.

 

[Onomatopeon]

Priorities...I guess?

 

[The0retical]

I mean, this is a terrible court, but they literally just ruled against a Texas social media law on First Amendment grounds yesterday. The article is still on the front page, for God's sake.

Supreme Court vacates rulings on Texas and Florida social media laws

Supreme Court remands two cases, saying lower courts didn't do full analysis.

arstechnica.com

Doesn't matter. This court is utterly incomprehensible with no respect for stare decisis, even with between their own rulings. Just look at the mess they've created interpreting their own 2022 Bruen decision and applying it to the recent Rahimi decision.

They're literally the "activist judge" court conservatives have been braying about for decades.

 

[Thad Boyd]

How do you interpret this as being related to privacy?

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

IMO it'd be a stretch.

It's just a blanket clause saying that the bill of rights is not a comprehensive list of rights, they meant it as you have to many rights for us to list but we've listed the one's we felt needed to be listed.

cool

Griswold v. Connecticut - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[onlysublime]

Good luck with the MAGA 6... They have forever altered this nation... I've never seen a more activist Court.

 

[mjeffer]

They vacated the 11th circuit ruling, which ruled the Florida law similar to the Texas social media law was unconstitutional, along with the 5th circuit ruling that upheld the Texas law. So if they ruled against the Texas law, then they ruled for the same type of law in Florida.

Really, to say the ruled against the Texas law is inaccurate. They provided some additional guidance, and different Justices provided wildly different guidance, and sent it back to the lower courts. They didn't rule for or against anyone.

But both majority opinions pretty much told the lower court that the law was unconstitutional. They just sent it back on procedural grounds. My guess is that the 5th Circuit is going to ignore them, because that's what they do know, and it'll end up back in the SC.

 

[DarthSlack]

If your point was something other than "this Supreme Court is bad, therefore their ruling in this specific instance will be bad," then yes, I missed it.

I think it's pretty clear that at this point in the Roberts court, far too many decisions are arrived at before the case is really heard and the arguments are constructed to fit the desired outcome. Sotomayor did note in her dissent yesterday that the majority is rather selective when it does, or does not, consider history.

 

[CrystalCowboy]

Meh,... Texans aren't missing anything. Pornhub doesn't have a goat-fucking category.

Never wake a floating goat

 

[Thad Boyd]

I think it's pretty clear that at this point in the Roberts court, far too many decisions are arrived at before the case is really heard and the arguments are constructed to fit the desired outcome. Sotomayor did note in her dissent yesterday that the majority is rather selective when it does, or does not, consider history.

I haven't disputed any of that.

 

[passivesmoking]

Given the current SCOTUS they'll probably strike the law down for not including a provision for public floggings