Jacob Ogles
A Supreme Court decision upholding a Texas law requiring porn websites to verify users’ age should shield a similar Florida law from legal challenges. But will website like Pornhub continue to block access to content for users in the state of all ages?
That question ultimately lies with publishers, though they recently caved following similar court rulings in Europe. Regardless, lawmakers behind the Sunshine State age verification law feel confident the court ruling will be a win for Florida families.
“I am pleased with the 6-3 decision and am confident that today’s decision further proves the Florida law regarding age verification is constitutional,” said Rep. Toby Overdorf, a Palm City Republican. “I am pleased that Florida’s children will be afforded some protections and allowed to just be kids.”
The Supreme Court affirmed Texas can require publishers to impose an age verification on all users in order to confirm no one under age 18 accesses pornographic content online.
“The statute advances the State’s important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas. “And, it is appropriately tailored because it permits users to verify their ages through the established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data.”
A dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan on behalf of a liberal minority affirmed that the states have the right to restrict minors’ access to pornography, but asserted imposing restrictions and registration requirements on adult users trampled on rights.
“Texas’s law defines speech by content and tells people entitled to view that speech that they must incur a cost to do so,” Kagan wrote. “That is, under our First Amendment law, a direct (not incidental) regulation of speech based on its content—which demands strict scrutiny.”
But ultimately, the majority of the court sides with Texas, which in turn should defend similar laws in more than 20 other states from legal challenges.
In 2024, Overdorf and Port Orange Republican Rep. Chase Tramont carried legislation (HB 3) requiring publishers to perform reasonable age verification processes. The law ultimately was passed in conjunction with more controversial age restrictions on all social media platforms as well. But the porn requirements on their own passed without a dissenting vote. Tramont said the court ruling should mean at least the provisions of statute related to pornography should stand based on the Supreme Court ruling.
“Precedent has now been set so I fully expect Florida’s HB 3 to effectively become the law of the State of Florida and am grateful to the Supreme Court for protecting our children while at the same time protecting our First Amendment right to free speech,” Tramont said.
The law requires age verification but does not limit adult access to pornography online. However, some publishers have blocked any Floridians from accessing content online, most notably Pornhub, the biggest porn site in the world.
Aylo, the parent company for Pornhub, told Florida Politics last year the age verification requirement would be ineffective at shielding minors from content while exposing users’ data to criminal exploitation.
“Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide, including Florida, have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard and dangerous,” read an email from Aylo at the time. “Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.”
Aylo did not immediately return a request for comment on the ruling on the Texas law. But of note, the company restricted access in France over age verification restrictions there and lifted them when an administrative court in Europe held up their legality.
“While important questions about the implementation of the law in France are being considered, we maintain that French citizens deserve regulation that will prevent children from accessing adult content and that can be effectively enforced,” reads an Aylo statement published on June 19. “They also deserve that their privacy and sensitive data be protected. Again, we believe the current approach faces significant challenges in achieving these important goals.”
The restriction of access in Florida and more than a dozen other states, including Texas, has come with consequence. Semrush in October last year listed Pornhub as the seventh most visited website on the web. As of May, Semrush ranked the site at No. 130. But the site still saw almost 272 million views that month.
Pornhub chose to shut down access in Florida and other states so as legal challenges played out in courts around the country. With the law settled, though not in publishers’ desired direction, it remains an open question if Pornhub will still firewall its graphic material.
Tramont said it would be more telling if Pornhub or any publisher refused to do business in Florida rather than work to restrict access to pornography for minors.
“I would say that for the companies who decide to shut down their service instead of choosing to comply with the law to protect children from gaining access to harmful materials, that tells us all who their real target audience is,” he said. “Here in the state of Florida, we will protect the innocence of a child’s mind. We’re grateful that the Supreme Court agrees with that mission.”
