Supreme Court hears challenge to Texas age‑verification law, focusing on standard of review and privacy risks

The Supreme Court on Monday heard argument in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a challenge to Texas’s age‑verification law (HB 1181) that requires websites with a threshold amount of sexually explicit material to restrict access behind an age‑verification barrier.

Mister Schaeffer, counsel for petitioner Free Speech Coalition, told the court: "This court should begin by confirming that strict scrutiny continues to apply to any such content based burden on websites and their adult users." He urged the justices to treat Texas’s law as a content‑based restriction that must survive strict scrutiny and asked the court to reinstate a district‑court preliminary injunction.

Why it matters: the case asks the Court to resolve whether longstanding First Amendment precedents (including Ashcroft) require strict scrutiny when a statute conditions access to online expression on an age‑verification process, or whether lower scrutiny (rational‑basis or intermediate review) can apply in light of technological changes since those precedents.

Argument highlights: petitioners emphasized three recurring points. First, they said the law is content based because a site’s obligation depends on whether material is "obscene as to minors" and because enforcement turns on the content displayed. Second, they argued HB 1181 is underinclusive: foreign…