WASHINGTON – It’s been more than a year since Texans were blocked from watching PornHub.
And on Friday, The Supreme Court upheld a law aimed at blocking children under 18 from seeing online pornography.
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CLOSER LOOK: Supreme Court upholds Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing pornography online
Nearly half all states have passed similar age verification laws as smartphones and other devices make it easier to access online porn, including hardcore obscene material.
Friday’s ruling comes after an adult-entertainment industry trade group called the Free Speech Coalition challenged the Texas law.
Pornhub already decided to fully block users accessing the adult entertainment site, along with several other states, following a law that required porn websites to verify the age of its users.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Supreme Court to examine age-verification law that could determine the future of Pornhub in Texas
In 2023, Texas lawmakers passed H.B. 1181, which mandated that all pornographic websites essentially check the ID of a user trying to access the sexually explicit content.
PornHub, who also owns a variety of other adult entertainment websites, thinks users shouldn’t be required to hand over their ID and personal information if they want to watch porn.
“As you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” reads a message on the PornHub website when you try to access the page in Texas. “Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk.”
Either way, this decision is likely to reshape the online adult industry and its legal boundaries.
— Gage Goulding - KPRC 2 (@GageGoulding) June 27, 2025
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Pornographic websites, led by the Free Speech Coalition, initially filed an injunction, but lost in state courts.
The Free Speech Coalition is a trade group for the adult entertainment industry.
The group appealed their lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to the U.S. Supreme Court, which announced that Friday would be its final day to deliver opinions for the current term. This includes Free Speech Coalition vs. Paxton.
Their lawsuit claims that the Texas law violates the First Amendment freedom of speech and expression.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton.
“This Court should begin by confirming that strict scrutiny continues to apply to any such content-based burden on websites and their adult users,” said Derek Shaffer, an attorney representing the Free Speech Coalition. “You’re creating a permanent record on the Internet when you provide this information. It is a target for hackers.”
Shaffer argued that the law chills lawful speech and places an undue burden on adults seeking constitutionally protected content online. He pointed to alternatives such as content filtering, which he described as “technologically better than ever, more readily available than ever.”
But several justices pushed back on that claim.
“Come on, be real,” said Justice Samuel Alito. “There’s a huge volume of evidence that filtering doesn’t work.”
The State of Texas defended the law as a reasonable and necessary measure to protect minors.
“Petitioners don’t dispute that their websites are not meant for children, that they harm children, and that children are watching,” said Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson. “Age verification today, however, is simple, safe and common, including non-identifying means.”
Nielson said the law is consistent with Supreme Court precedent, likening it to age restrictions upheld in Ginsberg v. New York.
“If strict scrutiny applies here, Texas would have to satisfy strict scrutiny to keep kids out of strip clubs,” Nielson added. “This Court’s cases do not require that. Neither do history, tradition or common sense.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, however, questioned that reasoning.
“We have at least five precedents that have answered that question directly... That’s strict scrutiny,” Justice Sotomayor said.
The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday is expected to have sweeping implications for the online pornography industry, regardless of whether the justices uphold or strike down the Texas law.
If the Court upholds Texas’s age-verification law, it could open the door for similar laws in other states, potentially reshaping how adult content is accessed across the country.
If the law is struck down, it may reinforce broad First Amendment protections for online platforms, setting limits on how far states can go in regulating digital speech.