A federal judge has blocked a Texas law that would require pornographic websites to verify users’ ages and issue health warnings.
Judge David Ezra, a Reagan appointee, on Thursday ruled HB 1181 unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction against it, saying the law goes “far beyond the interest of protecting minors.”
The judge ruled the law is vague and would violate Texans’ First Amendment rights.
“By verifying information through government identification, the law will allow the government to peer into the most intimate and personal aspects of people’s lives,” Ezra wrote in his ruling.
“It runs the risk that the state can monitor when an adult views sexually explicit materials and what kind of websites they visit,” Ezra wrote. “In effect, the law risks forcing individuals to divulge specific details of their sexuality to the state government to gain access to certain speech.”
“Such restrictions have a substantial chilling effect,” the judge wrote.
The law would have required websites with one-third pornographic content to post several “public health warnings” about the psychological dangers of pornography and verify users’ ages with their ID or another method.
Adult websites would be required to warn users that pornography is “potentially biologically addictive, is proven to harm human brain development, desensitizes brain reward circuits, increases conditioned responses, and weakens brain function.”
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The adult sites would also have to post a mental health hotline number and inform users that pornography is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, and emotional and mental illnesses. Finally, sites would have to alert users that consuming pornography increases the demand for prostitution and child exploitation.
“The disclosures state scientific findings as a matter of fact, when in reality, they range from heavily contested to unsupported by the evidence,” Ezra wrote in his ruling.
Companies that violate the law would face a $10,000 daily fine if it is “in the public interest.” If a child accesses sexual material, a company could face fines of up to $250,000 per violation.
The judge cited a 1999 decision by a federal appeals court striking down the Child Online Protection Act, which also tried to block minors from accessing adult content online. Ezra also cited a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the majority of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that regulated online pornography.
The judge said the Texas law has other issues too.
Some social media companies where children can access pornography, such as Reddit, would slip past the restrictions because they are likely not composed of one-third sexual material, the judge’s ruling said. Meanwhile, websites with sex health information would be blocked for minors, the judge predicted.
Thursday’s ruling is a win for the Free Speech Coalition, an advocacy organization for the adult industry, which sued to block the law last month. Also suing are several adult video companies, including a Romanian company, and an anonymous adult performer who has videos on Pornhub.
Texas is not the only state that has imposed age restrictions on pornographic sites.
A Louisiana law that took effect this year requires pornography websites to verify users are at least 18 years old as well.