FIRE statement on Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upholding age verification for adult content

Today, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold Texas's age-verification law for sites featuring adult content. The decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton effectively reverses decades of Supreme Court precedent that protects the free speech rights of adults to access information without jumping over government age-verification hurdles.

FIRE filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing that free expression “requires vigilant protection, and the First Amendment doesn’t permit short cuts.” FIRE believes that the government's efforts to restrict adults’ access to constitutionally protected information must be carefully tailored, and that Texas’ law failed to do so. 

The following statement can be attributed to FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere. 

Today’s ruling limits American adults’ access to only that speech which is fit for children — unless they show their papers first.

After today, adults in the State of Texas must upload sensitive information to access speech that the First Amendment fully protects for them. This wrongheaded, invasive result overturns a generation of precedent and sacrifices anonymity and privacy in the process.

Data breaches are inevitable. How many will it take before we understand the threat today’s ruling presents?

Americans will live to regret the day we let the government condition access to protected speech on proof of our identity. FIRE will fight nationwide to ensure that this erosion of our rights goes no further.