I consider myself pretty much a free-speech absolutist and even this seems completely idiotic to me:
Score one for Pornhub: A federal judge ruled Thursday that a Texas law requiring pornography sites to institute age-verification measures — and add prominent warning labels about the alleged dangers of porn — violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment prohibition against free-speech restrictions.
The rule — versions of which have been implemented in multiple other states — requires porn sites to implement "reasonable age verification methods" and also directs pornography sites to display a message stipulating that pornography "increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation, and child pornography."
Which is true, if the brief and sordid history of Internet pornography is any indication at all.
Yet Senior U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra claimed the law is "not narrowly tailored" because it "substantially regulates protected speech, is severely underinclusive, and uses overly restrictive enforcement methods."
Such as, what, an ID check and a message about the dangers of consuming the product?
Does someone need to remind Judge Ezra about the process of buying cigarettes, in which one has to (a) show an ID, and (b) read a message about the dangers of consuming the product?
I guess porn is different, somehow. It's very weird and creepy that a judge would draw that distinction involving a product that is demonstrably harmful for everyone at every level.
Pornhub, meanwhile, said it was "pleased with the court's decision," and that it would continue to support "method[s] of age verification" at the device level.
Uh huh. Sure. We believe you.
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