TALLAHASSEE, Florida – In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court’s upheld Texas’s law (HB 1181) requiring pornographic websites to verify users are at least 18, rejecting First Amendment challenges brought in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton.
This ruling favors Florida’s similar age-verification law, HB 3, signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in March 2024.
The Texas law mandates age verification for websites with substantial adult content to protect minors. The Court ruled that such restrictions are constitutional, supporting Florida House Bill 3 which requires third-party age verification, data deletion, and allows civil lawsuits with penalties up to $10,000 per violation.
The decision strengthens Florida’s law against ongoing lawsuits from groups like Free Speech Coalition, which was paused by a federal judge pending the outcome of Paxton.
Pornhub has already restricted access in Florida, as it did in Texas.
The ruling may reduce the likelihood of courts striking down HB 3 and could encourage other states to adopt similar laws.
HB 3 requires pornographic or sexually explicit websites to use age verification to prevent minors from accessing sites that are inappropriate for children.
The bill specifies that the age verification method “must be conducted by an independent third party not affiliated with the sexually explicit websites…. [The] third party that performs reasonable age verification methods may not retain any personal identifying information of the person seeking online access to material harmful to minors any longer than is reasonably necessary to verify the age of the person. Any personal identifying information collected for age verification may not be used for any other purpose.”
DeSantis vetoed a previous version of the bill that would have required all users, including adults, would have had to divulge their identity for age verification purposes
Copyright 2023-2025 FloridaWord.com
