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The Courts

Texas Law Requiring Age Verification On Porn Sites Ruled Unconstitutional (arstechnica.com) 106

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The day before a Texas antiporn law that requires age verification to access adult websites was set to take effect, the state's attorney general, Angela Colmenero, has been at least temporarily blocked from enforcing the law. US District Judge David Alan Ezra granted a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking enforcement after the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) joined adult performers and sites like Pornhub in a lawsuit opposing the law. Today, they convinced Ezra that Texas' law violates the First Amendment and would have "a chilling effect on legally-protected speech," FSC said in a press release.

"This is a huge and important victory against the rising tide of censorship online," Alison Boden, FSC's executive director, said. "From the beginning, we have argued that the Texas law, and those like it, are both dangerous and unconstitutional. We're pleased that the court agreed with our view that [the law's] true purpose is not to protect young people, but to prevent Texans from enjoying First Amendment protected expression. The state's defense of the law was not based in science or technology, but ideology and politics." Now, Texas will have to wait until this lawsuit is litigated to enforce the law. [...] According to FSC, in addition to free speech concerns, the law needed to be blocked because it would have exposed consumers to "significant privacy risks" by forcing adult-website visitors to show digital IDs.
A spokesperson for Pornhub's parent company Aylo told Ars: "We are pleased with the court's decision today, which reaffirms our position that the age verification law implemented in Texas is unconstitutional. We have publicly supported mandatory age verification of viewers of adult content for years, but any method of age verification must preserve user privacy and safety."

"The only solution that makes the Internet safer, preserves user privacy, and stands to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content is performing age verification at the device level," Aylo's spokesperson said. "We are pleased that the court recognizes the severity of compelled speech and its presence in this law that Texas has implemented. We are proud to fight for our industry and the performers that use it to legally earn a living, and we are glad to see the court recognize that this law is unconstitutional and would have required adult entertainers to falsely imply that their content poses health risks."

A similar age verification initiative in Australia was halted yesterday, citing concerns around privacy and security of the technology.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Texas Law Requiring Age Verification On Porn Sites Ruled Unconstitutional

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  • by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:03PM (#63813214)

    This particular motionized pixel sequence requires you to show your Digital ID to verify your age so your little brain can't be corrupted.

    • This particular motionized pixel sequence requires you to show your Digital ID to verify your age so your little brain can't be corrupted.

      I'm sure someone out there has a copy of Texas Governor Greg Abbott's driver's license we could all use ... :-)

    • I get the freedom ideals, and heck I don't think there's evidence that basic pornographic content is necessarily bad, but dumbing everything down to motionized pixel sequences is absurd. Yeah arrange pixels in a certain way and showing it to you over and over again most definitely is bad for your brain. You can see that in the people working for content filtering for big tech, actual adults with big brains, corrupted to the point of needing actual psychiatric care.

      Yeah some boobs giggling not so big, but if

  • by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:27PM (#63813282)
    (1) because human reproduction procedures are nothing to be ashamed of, and there is no reason not to let anyone look at them.
    (2) because even if you believe that "porn" needs to be locked away from a part of society, there are zero knowledge proof methods that would allow a third party (like the state) to attest an attribute like "is over X years old" without revealing the identity or a unique identifier of a person.

    Unluckily, the world is ruled by highly irrational people, and both solutions would never be implemented.
    • True enough. Although I find it rather annoying that a country that claims to have a "separation between church and state" sure has a lot of laws whose only purpose seems to be to enforce a moral belief of certain religious sects.

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        "separation between church and state" This does not apply to Texas where to beat the love of Jesus Christ into you is state policy.

    • because human reproduction procedures are nothing to be ashamed of, and there is no reason not to let anyone look at them.

      Playing Devil's Advocate: what about porn that doesn't involve reproduction such as felatio, analingus, urination, bondage, flogging, and all sorts of other stuff that's considered porn?

      • because human reproduction procedures are nothing to be ashamed of, and there is no reason not to let anyone look at them.

        Playing Devil's Advocate: what about porn that doesn't involve reproduction such as felatio, analingus, urination, bondage, flogging, and all sorts of other stuff that's considered porn?

        Maybe thats all part of the human mating rituals!
        LOL

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        That is the elaborate set of rituals around of what could be done in 30 seconds. But if it arouses anybody, it is related to mating. Simple.

    • Much of the world is ruled by politicians who are highly rational, but power-hungry and money-hungry, and they’ve figured out that whipping up moral/racial/nationalist outrages are great ways to tear down good government and allow them to accumulate wealth and power. They’re actually quite smart and rational, but basically malicious.

      I’m not a fan of texas, but i’ll give the texas supreme court a double thumbs-up on this one. I’m not a fan of pornhub, but I’ll agree th
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        They’re actually quite smart and rational, but basically malicious.

        Noting "basically" about it. Accepting a large damage to others for a smaller personal gain is the fundamental definition of evil and the hallmark of those that ultimately destroy society. Although I doubt most are all that smart. They keep making really dumb mistakes and some lie really badly. The problem seems to be that their voters are a lot dumber than them though.

    • (1) because human reproduction procedures are nothing to be ashamed of, and there is no reason not to let anyone look at them.

      You haven't looked at much porn have you. It has very very little to do with 'reproduction procedures'.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by ffkom ( 3519199 )
          The issues you mention are not addressed, at all, by requiring an age verification from viewers. They are not porn-specific, either: Youtube, Facebook etc. are full of "pranks" and similar kinds of videos the whole purpose of which is to ridicule non-consenting victims being filmed. And if people were rational about sex, a thing like "revenge porn" would be a boring non-thing as much as looking at a leaked video of your neighbor eating lunch is doing nothing for you or them.
      • by ffkom ( 3519199 )

        (1) because human reproduction procedures are nothing to be ashamed of, and there is no reason not to let anyone look at them.

        You haven't looked at much porn have you. It has very very little to do with 'reproduction procedures'.

        It may be a diverse genre, but the defining factor still seems to be that reproductive organs and their arousal play a vital role. Actors in a crime movie also do not really get shot dead, as much as actors in pornography won't start a pregnancy while filming.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      if humans were rational and porn was just about reproduction, then porn would not exist. Only educational reproductive videos would exists. And rationale people would get nothing out of them except education.

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      (2) because even if you believe that "porn" needs to be locked away from a part of society, there are zero knowledge proof methods that would allow a third party (like the state) to attest an attribute like "is over X years old" without revealing the identity or a unique identifier of a person.

      I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies of zero-knowledge proofs to say whether this is an issue or not, but one thing that might make that challenging is the need for such proof to be zero-knowledge in both directions — not merely preventing the porn site from knowing the person's identity, but also preventing the government from knowing what site is requesting that proof.

      The obvious solution, of course, would be for the browser itself to provide age verification as a service. The browser, afte

      • by ffkom ( 3519199 )

        I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies of zero-knowledge proofs to say whether this is an issue or not, but one thing that might make that challenging is the need for such proof to be zero-knowledge in both directions — not merely preventing the porn site from knowing the person's identity, but also preventing the government from knowing what site is requesting that proof.

        That challenge has been solved using Ring Signatures [wikipedia.org]. If the Ring contains every (or at least very many) known to be adult people, the verifier of a Ring signature will not know who signed the request for access.

        The obvious solution, of course, would be for the browser itself to provide age verification as a service. The browser, after all, knows what sites you are visiting, and presumably knows who you are.

        That is not a solution, it just shifts the burden of verification into the browser (which then would have to know how to verify who is using it), but worse it would expose one's identity to the browser, which as we know has likely been created by some greedy data collecting corporation.

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies of zero-knowledge proofs to say whether this is an issue or not, but one thing that might make that challenging is the need for such proof to be zero-knowledge in both directions — not merely preventing the porn site from knowing the person's identity, but also preventing the government from knowing what site is requesting that proof.

          That challenge has been solved using Ring Signatures [wikipedia.org]. If the Ring contains every (or at least very many) known to be adult people, the verifier of a Ring signature will not know who signed the request for access.

          With that approach, you'd either have to recreate the entire ring every day or create a new ring for everyone who turned 18 that day. The first of those approaches would be an absolute nightmare. The second would have only ~11,000 people in each ring, which isn't all that private, particularly if you know even one additional piece of information, such as the approximate geographical region from which the request came.

          • by ffkom ( 3519199 )

            With that approach, you'd either have to recreate the entire ring every day

            ... and that seems possible to me, proposals for signature rings where the size of the signature does not rise linearly with the number of ring members exist - probably also newer than this 11 old one: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/... [harvard.edu]

            • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

              With that approach, you'd either have to recreate the entire ring every day

              ... and that seems possible to me, proposals for signature rings where the size of the signature does not rise linearly with the number of ring members exist - probably also newer than this 11 old one: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/... [harvard.edu]

              To be able to generate and regenerate such a ring would seem to require that a single entity knows everyone over 18. Right now, there is no entity that can even cover the U.S. alone. The Social Security Administration knows about U.S. citizens. The IRS ostensibly knows about those plus legal resident aliens. Individual states potentially know about illegal resident aliens for driver's licensing purposes, but don't know about the people in the other 49 states. Now expand that level of chaos to the entir

    • I don't like the idea of the state deciding what people can or can't look at (and even worse for them to be tracking who's looking at anything), but I don't think it's fair to say that this is nothing but videos of reproduction procedures and leave it at that. Maybe pregnancy works differently in Japan, but I'm not sure how hundreds of men ejaculating on a woman's face gets the dead done. Jokes aside, there's a lot of porn that I don't think would be healthy (for a variety of reasons) for someone to consume
      • by rbenson ( 903023 )
        Should it be the government's job to regulate what a child consumes, or should that be the job of the parent?
        I don't care if it's food, drink or online videos.
        Parenting should be done by parents, not the government.
        Banning something from a child rather than explaining the negative effects isn't effective.
        I didn't know anyone that was prevented from drinking or smoking when they were young, just because it was illegal.
        If you don't want kids to do things, tell them why, at a level that they can understan
      • by ffkom ( 3519199 )

        there's a lot of porn that I don't think would be healthy (for a variety of reasons) for someone to consume while they're still developing.

        Most movies for entertainment show people doing "unhealthy" things - like shooting others or relying on supernatural abilities to survive what would normally be deadly situations. In comparison to these, most activities shown in porn are pretty low-risk. And people can learn even from early age that what movies show is not reality, and imitation could be very unhealthy.

    • I agree that this dumb, disagree that it is not technically feasible. One approach would be for the state to provide an OAuth server that had 1 account (with many ways to login): Something like: Over18@ageverify.texas.gov. Then all the receiving website would know is that the person had successfully convinced the state that they were over 18. Another more expensive approach would be for the state to provide FIPS-140 compliant state IDs that included an Over18 certificate.
    • by RedK ( 112790 )

      > (2) because even if you believe that "porn" needs to be locked away from a part of society, there are zero knowledge proof methods that would allow a third party (like the state) to attest an attribute like "is over X years old" without revealing the identity or a unique identifier of a person.

      So 1 "Don't be ashamed of porn", but 2 "I need anonymity to consume it".

      2 makes no sense anyway, why does porn consumption need to be anonymous online ? It never was anonymous offline. People saw you consume it

      • by ffkom ( 3519199 )

        So 1 "Don't be ashamed of porn", but 2 "I need anonymity to consume it".

        2 makes no sense anyway, why does porn consumption need to be anonymous online ?

        Exactly because we do not live in a rational world, and people are being harassed for all kinds of sexual preferences, including what type of pornography they like.

        It never was anonymous offline.

        In the world before the Internet, the effort to collect information on the sexual preferences of specific people you might want to harass was high - it would have been excessively expensive to organize a 7x24h surveillance on a random person to find out what pornographic books/magazines/videos that person might buy some day.

        Today, in contrast, c

    • (1) because human reproduction procedures are nothing to be ashamed of

      Honestly it's not a good source of information. I mean I've been jizzing on my wife's face, and down her throat for years and she's still not pregnant, what am I doing wrong? Am I not slapping her hard enough? Am I forcing her to wear the wrong school uniform? /s

      Do not confuse porn and reproduction procedures.

      • by ffkom ( 3519199 )

        (1) because human reproduction procedures are nothing to be ashamed of

        Honestly it's not a good source of information.

        If your goal is to reduce the highest contributing factor to human CO2 emissions, which is the number of future humans, then teaching people how to pleasure themselves without getting pregnant may be just the education you want to spread...

  • At some point we will have to resolve the inconsistency between the fact that going and buying physical girlie magazines requires ID, and logging onto xxx.com does not.

    If we were to be consistent, we should remove the age limits on purchasing or consuming physical porn, as both violate the 1st Amendment.

    Don't get me wrong, porn is useful and good to keep males docile and happy, it's been used that way since the beginning of time. All I'm advocating for is consistency.

    • Indeed, if we really want to be consistent, we should look at other erotic practices that are considered protected speech, like dance.

      In order to be consistent, shouldn't we remove the age limits for strip clubs? Erotic dance is clearly protected speech.

      • I remember a titty bar being 18 with full nudity because ethey didn't serve alcohol, while if you served alcohol you couldn't have full nudity, and everyone had to be 21.

        That said, yeah, remove age limits if no booze served, just make sure that places are allowed to set age limits if they want. Their place, their rules.

        • I remember a titty bar being 18 with full nudity because ethey didn't serve alcohol, while if you served alcohol you couldn't have full nudity, and everyone had to be 21.

          That said, yeah, remove age limits if no booze served, just make sure that places are allowed to set age limits if they want. Their place, their rules.

          What kind of freak country has age restrictions like that? 18 for titty bar but 21 to drink alcohol? Is this some 3rd world shit hole?

          • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

            by Train0987 ( 1059246 )

            "What kind of freak country has age restrictions like that? 18 for titty bar but 21 to drink alcohol? Is this some 3rd world shit hole?"

            California.

            • I am pretty sure more US kids get hurt from interaction with guns than with porn and that the damage from guns is more persistent than any from porn.
              • I'm pretty sure that more people get hurt from being born than those who aren't born. So it's time to outlaw birth.

          • The 18 was likely a US state law, while 21 is the legal drinking age across all of the united states. You could probably find US states that allow entrance to the same thing at 16 years of age. Because of the difference between state and federal laws, you end up with odd scenarios like that. I know for example, you can become a cop at 18 in at least one state, Alabama. You can be given a gun and a license to take another human being's freedom or life away, and still not be old enough to drink a beer.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            What kind of freak country has age restrictions like that? 18 for titty bar but 21 to drink alcohol? Is this some 3rd world shit hole?

            More likely a camouflaged theocracy with really medieval morals.

      • Indeed, if we really want to be consistent, we should look at other erotic practices that are considered protected speech, like dance.

        In order to be consistent, shouldn't we remove the age limits for strip clubs? Erotic dance is clearly protected speech.

        Don't forget drag shows.

    • So, in other words they have decided that age verification on the Internet is unconstitutional....

    • There is no inconsistency. In meatspace you can just walk into an adult store and potentially be exposed to something that our society has deemed age-inappropriate if you happen to be underage. Visiting a porn site, however, requires ownership or access to a device capable of accessing the internet, as well obtaining a connection to the internet itself.

      The majority of the population consists of adults. We shouldn't be inconvenienced because some parents can't figure out how to set up the parental control

    • If we were to be consistent, we should remove the age limits on purchasing or consuming physical porn, as both violate the 1st Amendment.

      There's still a huge difference between buying physical porn in a shop in person and online. In person, you show your ID to the clerk who looks at your birth year, does basic math, and decides whether you meet the local age requirement. Regardless of the outcome, the clerk will forget you fairly quickly, that is there's no record of you having your ID checked, nor what y

      • by RedK ( 112790 )

        > Unlike physical age verification, online age verification isn't ephemeral.

        Your DNS provider logs show you visited xhamster.com every day for the last 3 years my dude.

        • Not sure what your point is since such a statement only supports my original statement.
          • by RedK ( 112790 )

            That adding a layer of identification won't change anything vs the status quo.

            • I never said anything about adding a layer of verification. My ONLY point was that age verification by a clerk looking at your driver's license while you are physically in a shop buying physical media is ephemeral and that's a critical difference between on-line verification.
              • by RedK ( 112790 )

                > My ONLY point was that age verification by a clerk looking at your driver's license while you are physically in a shop buying physical media is ephemeral

                Not necessarily if security cams are involved and it can be ephemeral online too, so a totally moot argument.

                • Security cameras don't know your identity (unless paired with facial recognition, but I don't expect your neighborhood porn shop to be that sophisticated). On-line can be ephemeral, but it never is, and I don't really trust on-line sites that claim it is. Retaining the data is just too tempting for governments.
    • by taustin ( 171655 )

      There is a fundamental difference. If you walk into a store to buy your porn, the proprietor can check your age on ID, and match it to your face.

      Online, there are various ways to check to check that someone is old enough, but no way to connect that someone's identify to the person actually logging in. It's pretty trivial for kids to get whatever info is needed to imitate their parents online.

      There is no way around that that does not involve such brutally oppressive destruction of any semblance of privacy th

      • Plus, No one is storing a copy of your license if you buy a girly mag. As far as I'm aware, there is no legislation preventing the sites from storing that ID. Good for convenience, but a nightmare for privacy.

        • by taustin ( 171655 )

          The local store could just as easily keep a copy of your ID as the web site. Many liquor stores do, and have for years, just to be able to prove they checked.

          Not try replying to what I actually posted.

    • by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

      This is not an appropriate analog.
      I can block adult content at a device level with parental controls preventing children from accessing adult content. A right that should be left to the parents. However, I cannot install parental controls reasonably that allow young teens / children from walking into a store (When they're old enough to explore the city a bit on their own) and purchasing adult content.

    • I haven't bought porn mags for decades now, but when I did buy them, I literally never got carded.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Since when do you have to pay for porn on the Internet? You seem to be pretty inexperienced. Here is a test you can run: With the search engine of your choice, switch of "safe search" and search for "big boobs" or the like.

    • Then this should also apply to alcohol, tobacco and firearms, if you want to extend porn and other vices to children at least.

      Hell, I would say constitutionally speaking most laws that regulate a free person rights to engage in commerce is unconstitutional. Yet we have not ever applied this to children, leaving it to the parents to regulate their children. The question I believe needs to be answered in this case is can a company like Pornhub cater/promote their content to children without explicit parental

  • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:35PM (#63813300)

    The party of small limited government and personal responsibility.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      You have that reversed, it is: The party of small limited personal responsibility and government.

  • by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:37PM (#63813308)
    How about they rule it pointless and unenforceable. Most of the sites in question exist outside the borders of Texas, and in places where they really do not need to care what some idiot court in Texas says.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      One of the fundamental rules of law-making is not to make laws that cannot reasonably be enforced.

    • How about they rule it pointless and unenforceable. Most of the sites in question exist outside the borders of Texas, and in places where they really do not need to care what some idiot court in Texas says.

      Doesn't matter. Sites know where the user is accessing from, and if they're taking payment from users in Texas (I'm sure they have some kind of subscription options) then they're doing business in Texas and are at least somewhat subject to their laws. Even if it's purely ad revenue Texas probably has some jurisdiction over sites accessed within its borders.

  • ... "free speech" means you can dance nude for kids, but you can't say "the election was stolen".

    That's literally the opposite of what the concept of free speech was supposed to mean.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      "The election was stolen" is a lie designed to incite civil unrest. Basically a precursor to terrorism. It is not an opinion. If you do not know what any of the big words here mean, consult a dictionary.

      • "The election was stolen" is a lie designed to incite civil unrest. Basically a precursor to terrorism. It is not an opinion. If you do not know what any of the big words here mean, consult a dictionary.

        Like it was stolen when Trump first won the 2016 election? To this day, Hilary will say it was stolen from her to anyone that will listen. You believe her?

    • Clearly, you don't understand the issue. Try watching this [youtube.com].
    • Free speech is a consent-based principle. For instance, you should be able to write our newsletter and people should be able to read your newsletter because that's a matter between you and your reader, even if it describes black people with n-words or similar. If people don't want to read it, they don't have to. Whereas shouting abuse at someone can be regulated, because there's no consent, and they have the right not to be abused.

      Deceit can never be consensual, by its very nature. Dancing for people, on th

    • ... but you can't say ...

      One can't say "Sex education" or "American imperialism": US-ians aren't fighting to speak facts, and there are cohorts of parents demanding censorship and dishonesty.

      ... literally the opposite ...

      The fact they're are saying "the election was stolen" proves they have free speech. When they start saying 'you have to prove I'm right' and 'you have to find evidence I like', they are corrupting the bureaucratic/political process: That's not free speech, that's painting the grass orange.

    • ... "free speech" means you can dance nude for kids, but you can't say "the election was stolen".

      Go into Walmart and start voicing your political opinion to the store. Walmart will ask you to leave. Same with social media.

  • Greg Abbott is determined to sink his state's rising fortunes. If Texas was governed by semi-competent individuals, it could overtake California as the tech capitol of the nation...but the Republicans there would rather make pointless culture war statements than make their state thrive. Ban porn and abortion...if you want to, that's your state's right, but good luck attracting tech companies. Lonely young people love porn and engineers who are women or in a relationship with one generally aren't too comf
    • Make it a shitty place for young people to live and no one will want to live there who is under 50...good luck running a tech company if no young people want to work in your state.

      I work for a tech company with very few young people. Our hourly bill rates are eye-wateringly high. And people pay them, because we deliver.

      Youth is not required to run a tech company. It just makes it cheaper.

      • Make it a shitty place for young people to live and no one will want to live there who is under 50...good luck running a tech company if no young people want to work in your state.

        I work for a tech company with very few young people. Our hourly bill rates are eye-wateringly high. And people pay them, because we deliver.

        Youth is not required to run a tech company. It just makes it cheaper.

        I'm an old coder myself. I know very well I deliver more than a recent grad, but someday I hope to retire. Most of my peers semi-retire into management. In order to sustain after I change roles, I need to hand off work to others. I wasn't thinking about cheap labor, but just having a future beyond myself...as well as all the roles that support mine...ranging from customer support at our big tech company to the people stocking my local grocer or running the local coffee shop...to the schoolteachers my ki

  • Texas doesn't do law, or justice, or common sense, or democracy, or America.
  • Since ID is unconstitutional.

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