On January 15, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, a case involving Texas H.B. 1181, which is a law that imposes an age-verification requirement for adult sexual content websites. While content filtering has been used in the past by parents to regulate their children’s access to adult websites, the rapid advancement of technology in the past 20 years has raised concerns about the success of content filtering. The age verification requirement poses a more effective alternative, but if implemented, it could have implications for privacy concerns and free speech rights.
Jennifer Huddleston from the Cato Institute is joined by Clare Morell of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Bailey Sanchez of the Future of Privacy Forum, and Shoshana Weissmann of the R Street Policy Institute, to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of age verification laws, the policy implications of H.B. 1181, and the potential outcome of the Supreme Court case.