Porn industry drops challenge to Florida’s age verification law

The Free Speech Coalition has dropped a lawsuit challenging Florida’s law requiring pornography publishers to verify the age of visitors.

The move follows a U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming a similar law in Texas. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker approved the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss Tuesday.

The voluntary dismissal means the state cannot claw back legal costs, and the absence of a ruling means further litigation can be filed in the future.

The Free Speech Coalition, which is dedicated to protecting the rights of the adult entertainment industry, also filed the lawsuit challenging the Texas law. That resulted in the 6-3 Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton ruling.

The Coalition acknowledged that the Supreme Court decision hindered the Florida case.

“However, we are continuing to monitor the governmental efforts to restrict adults’ access to the internet in Florida,” Mike Stabile, a spokesperson for plaintiffs, said in a statement to the Northwest Daily News. “The Paxton decision does not give the government carte blanche to censor content it doesn’t like.”

But legal experts last week said the ruling on the Texas law spelled a difficult path for the Florida lawsuit.

The Coalition filed its lawsuit in December, arguing the Florida law put an unfair burden on publishers to validate the age of users “without accomplishing its stated purpose of protecting minors from materials they may easily obtain from other sources and via other means.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation in March 2024 that established the requirement for publishers. The same law (HB 3) also imposed age verification requirements on social media platforms.

The lawsuit from the Free Speech Coalition focused primarily on parts of the statute impacting pornography publishers.

But just because publishers must impose age verification software to provide service in Florida doesn’t mean they will.

Pornhub, the world’s leading pornography website, remained inaccessible for Florida users as of Wednesday, even after the legal challenge was dismissed. Aylo, the corporate owner of Pornhub, blocked access by users in the state in protest of Florida’s law.