Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito asked in court yesterday whether Pornhub has articles similar to the ones in old issues of Playboy.
In a case over whether Texan age verification laws for accessing pornography sites violate the First Amendment, Justice Alito asked if Pornhub has "essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.?"
Newsweek reached out to the Supreme Court via email for comment.
Why It Matters
Alito's line of questioning over the academic merits of Pornhub was to ascertain whether there is any content on the site that is not obscene for minors, a critical point in the lawsuit over whether it is constitutional for Texas to require documented age verification for visiting porn sites.
This lawsuit will also determine whether other states with or considering similar verification laws will be able to implement age restrictions for online porn.
What To Know
The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday for Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton. The Free Speech Coalition, a group made up of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocates and people in the adult entertainment industry, is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Texas' age verification laws to access porn sites.
The current law in Texas requires people wishing to access porn sites to verify their age with government documents or other official proof.
The Free Speech Coalition argues that these verification laws violate people's right to privacy while not preventing children from accessing porn that is still searchable on social media, with a VPN, on cable TV, or search engines.
ACLU lawyers have called this law the "canary in the coal mine" for the government's ability to shut down online speech and platforms that it does not like. The Reagan-appointed judge, Alan Ezra of the Federal District Court in Austin, blocked the Texas law over fears that it gives the government too much ability to peer into and monitor the private lives of citizens.
In his exchange on Wednesday with Derek Shaffer from the Free Speech Coalition, Alito asked: "So one of the parties here is, is the owner of Pornhub, right? And what percentage of the material on that is not obscene as to children?"
Shaffer responded, "Well, Your Honor, if we're talking about the youngest minors, I would agree that most of it is. And that is how we read the law."
Alito then asked: "Is it like the old Playboy magazine? You have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.?"
Shaffer said no, Pornhub does not host essays akin to Gore Vidal, however he added: "you have wellness post about women recovering from hysterectomies and how they can enjoy sex."
Alito followed up by asking whether other porn sites have essays on them, and Shaffer said he did not know. Shaffer added that the Free Speech Coalition is supported by the American Booksellers for Free Expression group and several softcore porn sites that are concerned they will also be subject to similar age verification laws.
In a statement sent to Newsweek, Shaffer said: "We are grateful for the opportunity to present our case and answer the justices' questions.
"We agree that states have a compelling interest in protecting children from harmful sexual content online, and we urge lawmakers to consider less restrictive, more effective solutions than the approach taken by Texas.
"We hope the Court will confirm the need to apply strict scrutiny to laws that burden and chill adults' exercise of their First Amendment rights, and we look forward to the Court's decision."
What People Are Saying
A brief filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: "H.B. 1181 does not prevent adults from viewing pornography. Instead, it requires online pornographers to take commercially reasonable steps to ensure that their customers are not children. Nor is H.B. 1181 an outlier. Countries all around the world require online pornographers to use age-verification technology."
Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project: "Pornography is historically the canary in the coal mine when it comes to censorship. Allowing the government to restrict access to sexual content will inevitably lead to more censorship and a more restricted internet for everyone."
Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition: "We can protect children online without censoring the internet for adults. There are smarter, more effective solutions to keeping kids from seeing adult materials that don't violate the First Amendment right of consumers to go online anonymously."
What Happens Next
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case in July. Supreme Court watchers expect it to support the Texas law.
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