Comments on: Comments on the Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton SCOTUS Oral Arguments on Mandatory Online Age “Verification” https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2025/01/comments-on-the-free-speech-coalition-v-paxton-scotus-oral-arguments-on-mandatory-online-age-verification.htm Wed, 15 Jan 2025 17:41:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: garycal https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2025/01/comments-on-the-free-speech-coalition-v-paxton-scotus-oral-arguments-on-mandatory-online-age-verification.htm#comment-4352 Wed, 15 Jan 2025 17:41:00 +0000 https://blog.ericgoldman.org/?p=27246#comment-4352 Consider the work-around as well. The Texas law applies to: " A commercial entity that … publishes … material on an Internet website …, more than one-third of which is sexual material harmful to minors". Now recognize that Tik Tok is about to disappear, spiking demand for non-adult content hosting. Why wouldn't PornHub offer to host and monetize entertainment and educational videos (especially since YouTube's content moderation has resulted in many educational videos and channels being taken down)? In fact, PornHub could host every out-of-copyright video it can find. Drop below the one-third mark that way and the Texas age verification censorship law won't apply. And hosting educational videos on PornHub would have the (surely unintended) consequence of driving more children to PornHub as part of research for school projects, etc.

The list of entities with the infrastructure to host non-adult content on a scale similar to YouTube is very short. PornHub is on that list — and presumably wouldn't need to spend money on content moderation, giving them a competitive advantage over entities like Netflix and Amazon, entities with the infrastructure but who are concerned about reputational risk.

As usual, amazing article. Thanks, Eric!

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