Pornhub, one of the most visited websites in the world, sued Attorney General Ken Paxton last year to block enforcement of a 2023 state law that requires websites that host pornography to institute age-verification measures and display health warnings on its pages.
Pornhub disabled its website in Texas after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the age-verification requirement in a ruling last week that cited a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision preventing the sale of obscene materials to minors. But the question of regulating minors’ access to online material has already been well established, legal experts say, and it stands in sharp contrast to the most recent decision from the 5th Circuit.
The appeals court previously reversed an injunction of a U.S. District Court judge, which had blocked the law from going into effect in August. The 5th Circuit’s temporary stay required pornography websites to impose age-verification measures and display health warnings that said pornography is proven to harm brain development.
