Texas can require age-verification on porn sites, 5th Circuit judges rule
One judge dissents, saying Texas law "limits adults' access to protected speech."
Texas can enforce a law requiring age-verification systems on porn websites, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled Thursday. The appeals court vacated an injunction against the law's age-verification requirement but said that Texas cannot enforce a provision requiring porn websites to "display health warnings about the effects of the consumption of pornography."
In a 2-1 decision, judges ruled that "the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in preventing minors' access to pornography. Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment."
The Texas law was challenged by the owners of Pornhub and other adult websites and an adult-industry lobby group called the Free Speech Coalition. "We disagree strenuously with the analysis of the Court majority," the Free Speech Coalition said. "As the dissenting opinion by Judge [Patrick] Higginbotham makes clear, this ruling violates decades of precedent from the Supreme Court."
I hope the internet is prepared for when VPNs will be targeted. A LOT of free access to the internet nowadays hinges on the use of VPNs and I have been dreading the day when corpos and politicians finally catch up to that fact for some years now. Remember when credit card companies removed themselves from Pornhub as a payment method after just one article from about exploiative material on the platform?
Just think about the consequences when you will only be able to subscribe to VPNs through bitcoin. I know, subscribing with your credit card isn't the smartest move in regards to privacy, but it works for a lot of stuff that isn't that dramatic (e. g. circumventing geoblocking).
I don't think we're that far away from the endgame for the free internet. Enshittification is just the first step. When that eventually doesn't work out, they will come for VPNs and stuff like the fediverse.
Tons of businesses rely on VPNs. There is no way they will be targeted.
I think the commenter means commercial anonymizing VPN services (no-log ones), not the network protocol itself