Overview

• The court’s 6-3 decision was led by Justice Clarence Thomas, who held that Texas’s 2023 law requiring age verification on sites where one-third of content is harmful to minors survives First Amendment scrutiny.
• Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, dissented on grounds that mandating personal data for access chills adults’ protected speech.
• Under the statute, any website with substantial sexual material must verify that users are at least 18 via government-issued ID or commercially reasonable methods relying on public or private transactional data.
• Non-compliant platforms face civil penalties up to $10,000 per day and up to $250,000 if minors gain access, a risk that led sites like Pornhub to block Texas users.
• By departing from a 2004 federal precedent limiting online age checks, the ruling is poised to validate or inspire similar verification laws in numerous other states.