US Supreme Court oral arguments today: SCOTUS appears sympathetic to online age verification for hardcore pornography [Video]

WASHINGTON — Concern over dangers to children from increasingly easy access to hardcore pornography online dominated U.S. Supreme Court arguments on Wednesday in a high-profile dispute over a growing number of state laws requiring adult websites to verify the age of users.

The justices heard an appeal from an adult entertainment industry trade group challenging a 2023 Texas mandate that sites with more than a third of content containing “sexual material harmful to minors” must receive electronic proof that a patron is 18 or older.

In all, 18 other states have similar age-verification measures as a means to limit access by minors.

Allowing the Texas measure to stand, industry attorney Derek Shaffer told the justices, “could open the door to an emerging wave of regulations that imperil free speech online.” Many members of the court seemed inclined to support the law nonetheless.

While all states have long made it illegal for brick-and-mortar …