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US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law
- ceejayoz 1y agoSo how broad is this? Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like?
- meepmorp 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- vel0city 1y agoLet me start off saying I'm not a fan of this law. I don't think these requirements are workable with current technology, and I don't necessarily agree with the goals or that the goals are worth the side effects of the regulations. > Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like? Most states have laws in place that regulate the sale and distribution of pornography and other "obscene" materials. This has been true for a long, long time. So yes, states have had the ability to require you to show ID to get a "newspaper" they don't like, assuming that newspaper is actually just pornography/obscenity. I don't think most people would argue Pornhub are news sites though.
- brianbest101 1y agoBut what counts as obscene is not well defined. Forget newspapers you could have to age gate Wikipedia
- vel0city 1y agoWhat counts as obscene has been defined for a while. And I don't think Wikipedia would count as obscene by the Miller test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test . Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, . Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law, . Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Clearly the whole of Wikipedia is not trying to appeal to purient interests of the average person. I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way, and I'd argue it has serious political and scientific value.
- reverendsteveii 1y agoEven in this description you deferred to your own personal interpretation when you said "I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way". Someone might, or might find it politically expedient to pretend that they do. After all, what's "offensive" is arbitrary.
- vel0city 1y agoYou're misunderstanding my description. You don't just need "someone". You'll find "someone" say anything, including that the Earth is flat, its 40,000 years old, and we're controlled by lizard people. The standard isn't "someone". You'll find someone who claims a table of ICD codes or a stop sign appeals to their prurient interest and is sexual in nature. You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. Not just any person applying any standard.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. No, you just need the court to agree, you don't need to actually get the (non-existent, fictional abstraction) of “the average person” to say anything, you just need a judge to believe that.
- bilbo0s 1y agoI understand the point you're trying to make. However, I wanted to point out that Wikipedia being one-third porn/obscene content is unlikely in the extreme.
- fzeroracer 1y agoIt's not really that unlikely. In the exact same brief upholding the Texas Porn ID law they're arguing that states have the power to decide what is obscene or not; they're setting up the blocks for saying things like any LGBT content is inherently obscene. This is especially clear in another ruling posted today [1] where the supreme court argues that parents have a right to fully withhold children from any LGBT content they might experience from school. [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf
- reverendsteveii 1y agoNot if I get to pick what's obscene
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoI'm just very skeptical of the argument that, when we see a fuzzy line, we have to erase it entirely so that nobody can abuse the fuzziness.
- Dracophoenix 1y agoWhy shouldn't we? A law that isn't well-defined in no law in the proper sense. Ambiguity and overbreath will just be weaponized against people and organizations the government doesn't like just like the Department of Education has done with Title VI in its crusade against a nebulously defined "anti-Semitism".
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoSince you bring up anti-discrimination law, I would point to the concept of “hostile work environment” as a good example. It’s fuzzy and ultimately subjective to draw the line where crude jokes become so offensive and so pervasive that they constitute harassment. But if you refused to draw any line, you’d end up with a lot of workplaces where women aren’t in practice welcome.
- giarc 1y agoNot unless that newspaper is "more than one-third sexual material".
- lupusreal 1y agoHuh, I think old playboy magazines might actually be under that one third.
- AshamedCaptain 1y agoWanna bet what the ratio is for e.g. Reddit?
- brianbest101 1y agoWhat counts as sexual material?
- vel0city 1y agoPretty much all courts in the US would use the Miller test to determine if material is obscene or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test
- joe_guy 1y agoI am not a lawyer and am not behind a PC atm, but didn't Rowan v. USPS determine that the receiver of mail has sole discretion about if the material they received is pornographic or not? A more limited context of course.
- aa_is_op 1y agoThis will just drive people to non-compliant foreign sites. They just killed their own adult industry, who is gonna take their business and taxes elsewhere
- josefresco 1y agoSomeone in this chain of corruption probably owns a VPN company or another entity benefitting (short term) from this ban.
- rendleflag 1y agoNever attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- kirubakaran 1y agoYou have to adjust your priors at some point though, right? Fool me once, shame on my prior. Fool me twice, shame on my posterior.
- heavyset_go 1y agoAdhering to that adage eventually becomes something masochistic and Sisyphean. Apply it to your personal relationships, but you will be steamrolled over and over again if you naively assume good faith in politics, business, etc even after you've been flattened to a pancake.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- TriangleEdge 1y agoI think your assumption that Texas cares about its porn industries is incorrect. Pornhub is a Canadian company. Afaik it's the #1 porn site, I could be wrong. I assume if they don't comply, their DNS host will be blocked in Texas. Registries of porn sites are readily available. (I use them in my hosts file blocking). So, my guess is that the likely step will be block all of them until they prove they have ID enforcement.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoSo, buy stock in VPNs?
- TZubiri 1y agoOr in anti-porn and anti-vpn startups. If you suggest teenagers will buy VPNs and we should monetize that, it should set some alarms to question your ethos.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoI think plenty of legal adults have zero interest in having a link tied to their porn consumption. The never ending stream of data leakage announcements should make it clear that if the data is collected, you have to assume it will become public. VPN at least puts a layer of indirection on that.
- stvltvs 1y agoAgreed. As an adult, I would use a VPN to bypass ID requirements to preserve my privacy.
- jarjar2_ 1y agoWhich they're fully aware of. They will eventually at some point pass a law requiring you to identify yourself to the VPN and/or government. This decision is ultimately about the end of the last vestiges of anonymity on the internet, unfortunately.
- blendo 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- heythere22 1y agohttps://archive.is/9DGKM https://archive.is/9DGKM
- dgfitz 1y agoNot the first time porn has come up on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30441276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30441276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25418862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25418862
- jimbob45 1y agoYou already have to show ID to see rated-R movies in the US. I don't see how this is any different.
- Eric_WVGG 1y agoThe movie theater doesn't keep a database of who's been watching their movies. [edit] and that doesn't just mean “okay jimbob is a dirty dirty boy.” It’s also a handy way to create a registry of whatever the handlers think is the target perversion du jour. [edit][edit] … and it's not even the government who's keeping that database, it's pornographers. Regardless of your political leanings or trust in the gov't, can you imagine a less trustworthy party to hand off your ID to? mein gott
- freeone3000 1y agoWhy don’t they?
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoSurveillance capitalism wasn't innovated when movie theaters started checking IDs. But since they've moved most ticket purchases online it's very likely they do maintain such a database now, and monetize an "anonymized" version of the data.
- tacticalturtle 1y agoBy the letter of the Texas law, neither do the commercial entities that have to verify identity: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/HB01181F.pdf#navpanes=0 https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/HB01181F.... Edit: Key bit there, the commercial entity or third party verification “may not retain any identifying information of the individual”.
- Eric_WVGG 1y agowell I’m definitely sure there’s no bad actors or just plain incompetent folks who can fck that up nossir
- silverquiet 1y ago[flagged]
- linotype 1y agoThis is just the beginning. Edit: really confused as to why this simple statement is flagged
- superfrank 1y ago"...and if we let gay people get married soon people will be marrying their dogs!" I do think there are legitimate reasons to not like the bill, but what you said is classic slippery slope
- cchance 1y agoBecause .... ITS A SLIPPERY SLOPE, that the republicans in charge and religious right wing have shown they are perfectly OK with pushing for, shit its funny how project 2025 is like 60% implemented and people are still acting like its all some conspiracy and this weird religious right wing shit isnt actually happening
- superfrank 1y ago"IT IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE! First we gave women rights, then black people rights, and now we're trying to give trans people rights and rights to illegal immigrants!" To be clear, I support all of those things, but the point I'm making is that saying it's a slippery slope is a bad argument because A) the next steps are often based on opinion and not fact and B) what one person sees as a slippery slope another person sees as progress and growth. I'm not arguing in favor of this Texas bill (I have pretty mixed feelings about it honestly). I'm just saying the argument the first person made is a bad argument.
- linotype 1y agoWe’re already sliding down the slippery slope. Claiming I’m arguing in bad faith is just helping the people that are pushing us down it. A slippery slope isn’t a bad thing if it involves people getting more rights. I also think it’s somewhat ironic that my simple statement that started this conversation has been flagged. Free speech really is done in the US.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 1y ago[flagged]
- makk 1y ago> the European playbook Reference?
- linotype 1y agoRead the article, it outlines European countries that already implemented something similar. Edit: if you don’t agree, at least comment why I’m wrong AND downvote. > In April, chat app Discord announced it is testing face scans in the UK and Australia. Regulators in Germany have been pursuing age checks—going as far as to fine individuals posting on X (then Twitter) in 2023—for years. Last week, Pornhub returned to France—it pulled services relating to the country’s age checking at the start of June—after a court ruling limited the law. And by July this year, porn sites and social media platforms operating in the UK are required to introduce “robust” age checks. Pornhub owner Aylo announced on Thursday that it would adopt "government approved age assurance methods” to comply with the law.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Workaccount2 1y agoI'm more interested in the downsides of not having ID verification. We have an entire generation of humans raised with effectively no verification going back 30 years now. So what is the data? Why is a high barrier so important that every adult has to annoyingly climb over it with all sorts of friction?
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoDramatically lower teen pregnancy rates is one metric from the last 30 years.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoOne consequence that concerns me greatly is that men in the generation you're describing routinely choke their sexual partners. I remember a decade or two ago, when I thought it was ridiculous that porn might teach people to be abusive - I regret to admit that I was catastrophically wrong. (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/sep/02/i-think-its-natural-why-has-sexual-choking-become-so-prevalent-among-young-people https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/sep/02...)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lesser23 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- surgical_fire 1y agoI don't particularly enjoy it, nor does the wife. But if erotic choking is consensual amongst two adults, what exactly is the issue? Are we to start policing how people enjoy fucking?
- OutOfHere 1y agoSo just produce three-fourths AI-generated non-adult irrelevant material, and segregate it enough to not harm regular user activity. Got it.
- tristan957 1y agoSomehow you have to provide an ID to watch porn in Texas, but a 10 year old kid can go to specs.com and just lie about their age and view imagery of a controlled substance. My wine club just delivers wine without verifying my ID, so a 10 year old child could just do the same with a parent's credit card. I don't understand how this makes sense.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ineptech 1y agoWould it not be reasonable and safe and private to implement age verification through login.gov? An Oauth implementation that knows your identity and age can produce a verifiable token that attests your age but not identity. The only way your identity would leak would be if both the porn site and the oauth retain the tokens (which they would both claim not to do else no one would use this), and the attacker gets access to both. I know it's unlikely to happen because of America's (misguided IMO) extreme distaste for digital government ID, but it seems like the current solution (people uploading pictures of their driver's license to porn websites) is worse in every possible way.
- ahtihn 1y agoYou need something like Verifiable Credentials to do this properly imo. You don't want something like OAuth because the login service knows which websites you're requesting the login from.
- ineptech 1y agoI'm not suggesting that people actually authenticate to Pornhub using Login.gov's oauth, they would continue to auth (or not) as they do now. Login.gov can issue a token saying, in essence, "A user authenticated to me, and that user over 21, but I'm not going to identify them, I'll just give you a random GUID so this token will be unique". edit to add more details, since I'm thinking it through: the token would need to include the issue date and be signed obviously, and would be ephemeral. Properly implemented, it could be done entirely in the browser (Firefox would have a "age verification provider" pull-down) in way that's transparent to the user and both private and secure. And since you have to be 18 to get a credit card, essentially any service you pay for with a credit card in your own name ought to be able to attest your age, even if it hasn't done KYC or scanned a government ID.
- NekkoDroid 1y agoWhat I've been thinking of is (although very similar): 1. Government has private/public key or similar for "Is above 18/21/legal age" 2. Site generates random data 3. Sends data to user 4. User somehow sends the data to government for signing (be it via some login or whatever) 5. User gets signed data back and sends it to the site 6. Site verifies the data against the public key I guess the signing part could be done with all sorts of different methods, but the site would still need to be able to somehow figure out how it was signed and get the appropriate public key for it. The main problem I see is that this isn't exactly stateless, so you do need some form of (semi-)persistent identifier on the server side.
- GameOfKnowing 1y agoHey— performer & small site owner here. Most of the hypothetical cases in the media (and these comments) relate to Pornhub, OF, etc— companies that definitely can afford to implement age verification even if it hurts their bottom line. This totally misses the vast majority of porn sites that are very small, operate on licensed technology that may not even be maintained, and would have their ~low-5-digit annual income nuked by the cost of compliance. In these cases, geo-blocking states one by one as they implement these laws becomes the only option. Yeah VPNs exist, but HN users faaaaar over-estimate the technical knowledge & ability of the average American used to having the net served to them on a silver platter.
- nickff 1y agoThe regulatory burdens on most companies have been gradually increasing, to the point that it is very difficult to run companies with <100 (some might say <1000) employees in most non-software industries. I am sorry to hear that it will negatively impact you, but you don't have the most sympathetic story, and nobody seems to care about this issue anyway, so there's little hope of reprieve, and you'll likely just have to bear it or quit.
- JohnMakin 1y agoWhy is the story not sympathetic?
- nickff 1y agoVoters don’t seem to sympathize or at least support pornographic performers or distributors; see Operation Choke Point for an example of how they were lumped in with ‘unsavory’ industries, and cut off from essential services (with no substantial corresponding outcry).
- init2null 1y agoMost of the time they'll go on Twitter or the noncompliant websites instead. That being said, published numbers have shown VPN subscriptions skyrocket. Public tech skills aren't what they were in the 2000s, but people who can't/won't verify ID are motivated. It is a powerful force after all.
- knowitnone 1y agoas I've said before, if you block legal porn sites, people will find other ways of getting porn which will expose them to and prolierate illegal porn. This is not a good law.
- draw_down 1y ago[dead]
- daft_pink 1y agoI’m curious if Apple Wallet will provide a framework for future privacy protecting age verification nationwide after securing the ability to load US Passports into Apple Wallet, since Driver’s licenses in Apple Wallet is such a patchwork and they seem to be a trusted method of doing verification without submitting your information to some sketchy porn website.
- morgango 1y agoApple has never been friendly towards adult sites. They could have made a mint off of adult applications in the App Store, but it isn't their style.
- yablak 1y agoNext step is to outlaw VPNs
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoApart from being a mainly unworkable law, that's not going to go down well with businesses that have remote workers. Ultimately, trying to crack down on VPNs is likely to lead to laws against any encryption that the govt. can't inspect as otherwise they can't distinguish between lawful/unlawful use.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y agoA note on what the future will look like and how we'll get there. [Justice] Thomas’s invention of “partially protected” speech, that somehow means you can burden those for which it is protected, is particularly insidious because it’s infinitely expandable. Any time the government wants to burden speech, it can simply argue that the burden is built into the right itself—making First Amendment protection vanish exactly when it’s needed most. This isn’t constitutional interpretation; it’s constitutional gerrymandering. ref: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/27/the-conservatives-on-the-supreme-court-are-so-scared-of-nudity-theyll-throw-out-the-first-amendment/ https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/27/the-conservatives-on-the...
- pyuser583 1y agoI have kids and try very hard to keep them from inappropriate material online. The real dangers aren’t dedicated porn sites, but poorly managed social media sites. You can’t just block the domain. In many cases, the bad material comes from peers. Kids have always talked about “bad” things, but the internet super charges it. I generally support these efforts, but I’m also very cynical they help. Politicians focus on the problems they control, like rules for sites that rigorously follow the laws and fit in a clear category. They care far less about the grey areas where the most harm is often done. I think this is a good thing. I’d feel a lot better if these efforts were combined with rigorous privacy protections. For example, third party identity verification services should be civilly liable for privacy breeches, and required to carry insurance to meet the obligations.
- theschmed 1y agoI tend to think that this challenge posed by "mixed" domains, partly unobjectionable but partly inappropriate, will only become more prevalent. A couple of thoughts: 1. Filtering at the DNS level will never be enough. You'll always need to have the capability for the browser or user agent to do filtering, since the user agent has the context to know the full URI as well as other things needed for filtering. The OS admin (parent, school IT admin etc) will need to be able to block all user agents except the ones that have the reporting and filtering capabilities tuned to the admin's requirements. This is the direction Windows is heading, but it is very rough. 2. I wonder if more domains could do what Google, Bing, Youtube etc do and permit a safe version to be requested at the DNS level. I personally would like to be able to do so with Reddit, Twitter and more.
- pyuser583 1y agoThe absolute worst domain for mixed content is google.com. Google has it's own internal internet. Searching for inappropriate images on Google images (using "safe" terms), and downloading the cached image is a powerful workaround. Ok, there are a few worse ones. But it's pretty bad.
- Canada 1y agoYou pretty much have to whitelist. I think we're heading towards a future where we give kids only devices that restrict internet access to known good content. There's more than enough known good content out there already to keep kids occupied until they come of age. There will be managed whitelists that your kids can access, which sites must apply for and demonstrate compliance with the policy of, and you will be able to trust, so that you or other guardians in your family don't have to manage the minutia, which is effectively impossible for you to handle. And your children will be able to access only these, and any other exception that you personally whitelist them to have. And we other adults won't let kids, yours or anyone else's, have open access through us as proxies, just as we won't buy them cigarettes or alcohol if they asked us, because we all agree doing so is wrong. And we will have punishments for those who break this rule, just like we have had for generations for pre-internet vices. We won't need to bother trying to censor the whole internet anymore. We'll just take away children's unlimited unsupervised access to it, just as we have come to a social and legal consensus to exclude them from other parts of the physical world we all agree they are not ready to handle. I predict this will happen, major device makers like Apple will lead it, and everyone will eventually agree it is appropriate and in best interests of everyone.
- rwyinuse 1y agoBanning kids from using social media would probably have a much more significant positive impact on their mental development. Obviously kids browsing Pornhub is not a good thing, but sites like TikTok expose them to much more traumatizing violent material, and of course turns them into quick dopamine-seeking zombies that are glued to their smartphones. Frankly speaking, even for underage teenagers the most harmful thing about porn is the potential for addiction, not the content itself.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cigaredforlife 1y ago[flagged]
- Tadpole9181 1y agoThanks! Did you have any more tips for us immoral peons, clearly beneath your intellect? Maybe you could let us know how best one can licks boots, since you seem to be an expert on the subject matter? First of all, privacy and free speech are human rights and this is so brazenly a violation of them. The government has no business knowing every site anybody goes to and mandating delicious databases of blackmail material with every piece of adult content any American citizen has ever watched. Second of all, reduced access to porn correlates to an increase in sex crimes and teenage pregnancy. This is bad news for us all. It really is that simple.
- DangitBobby 1y agoThis attitude is first of all disappointing, but also predictable, and crucially exactly reflect (I believe) the closely held beliefs of legislators and judges trampling on 1st Amendment rights "for the children". The age verification scheme is blackmail, designed to discourage access to pornography for adults, plain and simple. If it weren't, they would have set up age verification schemes that allow you to remain anonymous. Instead of being smug about how you like the outcome (this time) you should be concerned that your constitutional rights are subject to the arbitrary moral whims of whoever happens to be in power at the time. Imagine a Congress and complicit SC that together legislates it's illegal to visit Christian churches without government age verification because some right wing factions churn out violent extremists who brainwash and indoctrinate children into their ranks as young as possible?
- theturtle 1y agoThis, of course, will result in massive data breaches exposing white male "christian" Texas politicians/porn users, and much laughter and merriment. VPNs will do a good business, too.
- inverted_flag 1y agoOh boy, I can’t wait until I have to submit my government id to some random “age verification” provider just so I can read Oglaf.
- codedokode 1y agoIf you visit P*Hub from Russia, it requires you to authorize though Vk (Russian superior Facebook clone) to use the site, maybe because of this it is not blocked unlike other similar sites. I wonder what they do with this data.
- stego-tech 1y agoWhat's worse is that combined with the ruling in Mahmoud v Taylor, age verification can now be justified against anything considered "adult" or "pornographic" in nature - including LGBTQ+ storybooks, information on abortion or sexual health, discussion about HIV, or even just political dissidence if a state wants to reach particularly far. "Adult content" is nebulous and vague on purpose, and one party is taking advantage of that to attack minority groups and undesirables. The point isn't to defend sex work (though you absolutely should), it's that sex workers are just the first targets when it comes to authoritarian change like this. They're the canaries in the coal mines of free speech, and the fact they're screaming in venues like Wired or Hacker News should really give everyone cause for concern that their stuff is next, unless things change. And on the topic of parenting, look, I hate to be that dinosaur, but age verification doesn't stop minors from accessing adult content: competent, aware adults do, or at the very least put things into context when mistakes happen. As a child of the 80s-2000s who was effectively babysat by technology in some form, STOP DOING THAT. It's bad for the kids, it's bad for the parent-child relationship, and it's offloading your responsibilities as a parent to other adults and entities who did not consent to accepting them. It's about acknowledging that you won't be able to shield them completely for harm, and preparing to put things into a healthy context when mistakes do happen rather than demanding everyone else be punished just so you can avoid temporary awkwardness. We don't need tighter laws in the name of protecting kids, we need parents to do so - and build a society where at least one parent is always accessible to children to oversee their development. It means building technology that puts parental needs above profit motives, creating software that's quick and efficient to force children off apps and back into the real world, rather than turning them into mindless zombies watching videos all day. Laws punishing consenting adults to "protect kids" are ineffective at their stated goals, but highly effective at punishing threats to a given regime. It's why fascists and authoritarians weaponize sex so early in their regime change: it's all about control in the most intimate way, to normalize its creep elsewhere.
- cyanydeez 1y agoWhats probably most important to a tech related forum: The dirty secret that drives new technology: it's porn https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/mar/03/internetnews.observerfocus https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/mar/03/internetn...
- wetpaws 1y ago[dead]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoAs they should. What's unconstitutional about the law?
- AngryData 1y agoThis is just "Papers Please!" for the digital world. Does your cable TV or satellite box require ID verification for skinimax shows? Didn't think so. Do you want to submit your ID to every other site and user profile? Because that is where this is obviously going. This is a bullshit law that won't help anyone while harming millions, kids see most porn on non-porn websites anyways.
- mariusor 1y agoAre you sure it doesn't? Don't you need a contract with the cable company to get cable in general?