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SCOTUS age verification ruling expands surveillance apparatusellsberg.substack.com/p/free-speech
1634 sats \ 13 comments \ @Scoresby 12 Jul alter_native
In the ever-increasing quest to protect the children, many states have passed age verification laws for sites that have adult content.
Whatever your feelings about adult content, these laws increase the surveillance apparatus of the state.
On June 27, 2025, the Court upheld the Texas law by a 6–3 vote, holding that the age-verification law "only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults."[10] Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. The Court ruled that the Fifth Circuit should have used the intermediate scrutiny test, and the Texas age-verification law passed that test. Wikipedia article on the ruling
What I find particularly unnerving about these laws is that they are based on the location of the viewer. If you are a writer of erotic literature in Hawaii, a person in Texas can sue you for not having the proper age verification checks on your website. In some cases, operators of websites are required to keep age verification data for 7 years.
under the laws that the Supreme Court just upheld, prosecutors in Tennessee and South Dakota can even reach across state lines and prosecute writers on FELONY charges for a single paragraph of sexually-explicit writing on my site that they think "harmed" kids in their states, facing up to FIFTEEN years in prison, for failing to implement ID-checks on my dinky little free WordPress site.
Feels like we are setting up the system for gated access to the internet.
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254 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 12 Jul
This seems like another obnoxious thing Stacker News may have to contend with at some point.
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147 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scoresby OP 12 Jul
Yes, these age verification laws are gonna get applied to everything.
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123 sats \ 3 replies \ @Bell_curve 21h
Like driving a car
How will we maintain a free society if a 12 year old must get a license to drive
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86 sats \ 2 replies \ @Scoresby OP 19h
Drivers licenses did make possible quite a dramatic expansion of the surveillance state.
Would TSA have worked if drivers licenses werent already widespread?
It seems to me that this new step into age verification requirements sets the stage for kyc to use the internet.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 18h
and yet illegal or undocumented immigrants have figured out a way to dodge the surveillance state
FYI, TSA doesn't work
edit: is Pornhub a free or paid service? I would look it up except you probably have the most thorough answer
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92 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 7h
FYI, TSA doesn't work
I couldn't agree more, but that only makes me more angry that I have to do all the security theater to get on an airplane. Just because it doesn't work, doesn't mean they won't make my life more difficult by trying it.
I don't think KYC laws work either, but they certainly make it more difficult for many Bitcoin businesses and for Bitcoiners in general. Just because they don't work doesn't mean I don't have to give all my details to an exchange and then get screwed when their database is leaked.
In the case of our original argument, I don't care what the subject is: porn, marijuana, being able to say racial slurs -- I see regulation of these things directly leading to ever-expanding surveillance of the general population. We are close to the point where the 4th amendment is null and void because there are so many established carve outs.
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118 sats \ 0 replies \ @nichro 13 Jul
based on the location of the viewer in Hawaii, a person in Texas can sue you for not having the proper age verification checks on your website.
So annoying. Reminds me of EU GDPR where iirc you can get dinged if you don't have proper compliance with European visitors even if you're not in Europe.
I wonder how many sites aren't properly compliant who only don't get harassed because the enforcer trolls go for big fish first.
Armies of bureaucrats keeping themselves employed and creating new kinds of work and services to get paid for.
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Bell_curve 13 Jul
All social media services have an age requirement waiver, I believe it is age 12 or 13
This is not new or onerous
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1170 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby OP 13 Jul
I disagree. The Texas law that was passed in 2024 says
Sec. 129B.002. PUBLICATION OF MATERIAL HARMFUL TO MINORS. (a) A commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material on an Internet website, including a social media platform, more than one-third of which is sexual material harmful to minors, shall use reasonable age verification methods as described by Section 129B.003 to verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older. source
It doesn't matter what age such laws promulgate. The issue at hand is how age verification is supposed to be done. In almost all cases it leads to identification requirements that look a lot like kyc.
It is most certainly new and definitely onerous.
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113 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 13 Jul
it leads to identification requirements that look a lot like kyc.
From 129B.003, b2B, keeps potential for doing this with zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), I think:
(b) A commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material on an Internet website or a third party that performs age verification under this chapter shall require an individual to (2) comply with a commercial age verification system that verifies age using (B) a commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of an individual.
It doesn't necessarily require full KYC; it can be narrowly focused on age verification and can certainly be implemented using ZKP. We (cypherpunks) could address this issue and fulfill one of the assertions from the cypherpunk manifesto that touches on this. 1

Footnotes

  1. Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself. ↩
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163 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 13 Jul
Note after doing more research. This kind-of already exists too, Google open-sourced the implementation they made for Sparkasse, per the announcement (#1022044) from 10 days ago.
Per response to an issue on the repo, about a quarter of it is alleged to be stable, some stuff is explicitly not (ligero, sumcheck).
Now I wonder, what can we do? Provide an open end-to-end implementation?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 13 Jul
and then it will slippery slope into showing ID to fly or enter the country or to vote
How will our 'democracy' survive?
I voted for fascism and hate in 2020 and 2024.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 21h
I asked ChatGPT about the decision and statute…
Yes — your understanding is correct. On June 27, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas House Bill 1181 in a 6–3 decision (majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas), finding that requiring age verification for websites with over one-third sexually explicit content is constitutional. The Court held that this requirement places only an incidental burden on adults’ First Amendment rights, and thus passes intermediate scrutiny since it serves the compelling interest of protecting minors .
The majority emphasized that states retain the power to require proof of age before distributing content that is “obscene to minors,” and that adults do not have a right to avoid such age verification . The decision explicitly noted that technologies and increased access since the 1990s differentiate this case from earlier precedents .
Meanwhile, the three dissenting justices — Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson — argued that the law imposes content‑based restrictions on adults, and that it should be weighed under strict scrutiny comparable to cases involving access to protected speech. They expressed concern over both the free speech burden and possible privacy implications arising from required user identification .
Notably, the ruling paves the way for similar laws in at least 21 other states, giving them a green light to continue or enact age-verification measures for online adult content . Already, sites like Pornhub have responded by shutting down access in Texas rather than comply .
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🔍 What this means • Age verification laws are constitutional: The Court affirmed that requiring visitors to verify they are 18+ is permissible under the First Amendment, so long as it’s reasonably tailored to protect minors. • Precedent shift: Earlier rulings like Reno v. ACLU (1997) and Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004) don’t block these modern requirements, as the Court emphasized changes in technology since then (). • Privacy considerations remain: Enforcement could push platforms toward over-collection of data, raising concerns until robust privacy-by-design practices become standardized . • Future ripple effect: The ruling might embolden lawmakers to pursue age verification laws beyond pornography—potentially targeting social media or other platforms—though such extensions would likely face new legal scrutiny .
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Let me know if you’d like a breakdown of the opinion, the legal standards used, implications for specific platforms, or how this fits into broader internet regulation trends.
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