The Supreme Court's ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton limits age verification requirements, only applying to sexual materials that minors cannot legally access. It does not extend to general social media or websites, preserving some First Amendment rights for adults. Despite the ruling's impact on adult access to lawful speech, it concludes that age verification creates incidental barriers rather than broad restrictions. The Electronic Frontier Foundation continues to oppose age gates, viewing them as a threat to privacy and free speech for both adults and minors.
The Supreme Court's decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton does not allow states or the federal government to impose broader age-verification mandates on social media, general audience websites, or app stores. This ruling reverses decades of First Amendment protections for adults to access lawful speech online, affecting not just minors but adult access to various types of speech that were previously protected.
The court's legal reasoning in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton relies on the Texas law blocking minors' access to speech to which they had no First Amendment right. This law was evaluated under intermediate scrutiny as it restricts access only to material deemed 'harmful to minors' and does not apply more broadly.
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