Attorney General Ken Paxton Defends Texas Law Protecting Children from Online Porn
January 16, 2025 – WASHINGTON, D.C. – At the Supreme Court of the United States, Attorney General Ken Paxton defended a Texas law requiring internet based pornography sites to verify the user’s age to protect children from being exposed to harmful content.
In 2023, Texas passed House Bill 1181 compelling pornography companies to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from obscene online material which has been shown to be harmful to minors. Immediately after HB 1181 became law, pornography distributors sued Texas. At the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Attorney General Paxton won a major victory allowing Texas to enforce HB 1181 while litigation continued. The pornography companies appealed to the Supreme Court, asking for the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that the law did not violate the First Amendment to be overturned.
Represented by Solicitor General Aaron Nielson, Texas presented a robust argument to the Supreme Court in defense of the law, showing that the First Amendment in no way permits companies to distribute obscene pornography to children. Further, Texas defended its state interest in safeguarding children from the harmful effects of online pornography.
“In Texas, we will protect our children and hold pornography companies accountable for the illicit content they distribute online. Texas’s law does exactly that, by requiring porn sites to institute reasonable and non-burdensome age verification measures,” said Attorney General Paxton. “We presented a strong argument today and I am confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law’s constitutionality and side with Texas in protecting minors from harmful obscene content.”
Attorney General Paxton has aggressively enforced the law while litigation continues, suing Aylo Global Entertainment, the operator of pornography websites including Pornhub. Rather than institute the required age verification measures, Pornhub opted to shut down its site entirely in Texas.
Critics say this effort to protect children has virtually no real word effect. Internet sites such as these have no real motivation to make age verification robust. Now there are a host of sites that provide work-arounds for the various porn sites. Those solutions are a quick google search away.
