The most memorable question during the Supreme Court's oral arguments on how the internet might change dramatically came from Justice Samuel Alito. "One of the parties here is the owner of Pornhub, right?" Alito asked Derek Schafer, an attorney with the Free Speech Alliance, an adult industry group. "Is it like before? playboy Magazine? Do you have articles on modern Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr.?

In case you're wondering, the big adult portal Pornhub doesn't publish articles by prominent intellectuals. (Shafer points out, Do Host sexual health videos. ) The question prompted a flurry of comments on social media, as well as some quips directed at Judge Clarence Thomas, who declared during oral arguments That"playboy It's about the curved lines on cable television. ” But as interesting as these quotes are, what is The judges were no joke: How much protection should sexual content and other legal speech receive if hosted online?

FSC v. Paxton Texas' HB 1181 bill would require websites with heavy pornographic content to verify the age of users and issue scientifically unsubstantiated health warnings stating that pornography is "proven to harm human brain development." The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the law to go into effect after a lower court blocked it as unconstitutional. Today, both sides (along with Chief Deputy U.S. Attorney Brian Fletcher) are primarily arguing over whether the court used the correct level of scrutiny to assess the legal risks. But the arguments also touch on larger questions — including whether the growth of the internet has rendered old Supreme Court rulings obsolete.

“We’re at the crossroads of some very important internet laws right now,” said Christopher Terry, associate professor of media law at the University of Minnesota.

In some ways, this is a very familiar crossroads. exist Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union and Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union In decisions in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled that online age verification laws targeting adult content were unconstitutional. The most important thing is, FSC v. Paxton It's the latest in a series of recent internet legal woes, including a case over a ban on TikTok - TikTok v. wreath - I just heard this last week.

“The sophistication and energy of these arguments seems a little low. I’m tired of the judges taking on internet issues,” said Blake Reid, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder. “I think the age verification issue is one that the courts have encountered many times before. "

Current courts have ruled on some past cases in a narrow manner and failed to address larger issues about the internet. Judges seemed conflicted about whether to do so — for example, simply send the case back to the appeals court, Reid said. (The U.S. government also appeared in court to promote a middle ground between the FSC and Texas, opposing the 5th Circuit's ruling but not all age verification laws.) "They're trying to decide: Do we address the level of review? question, or do we keep getting an answer to whether this is constitutional?" he said. "Can we make this not our problem in a very narrow way, or do we need to dig in and fix it?"

If the courts do get involved, a particularly obvious problem arises. Those earlier rulings found that age verification systems from the 1990s and 2000s placed an undue burden on people's speech and that filtering software could serve the same purpose, but the court also said that if the internet changes in the future, At some point, the analysis It may also change. Justices, especially conservatives like Alito and Thomas, raised that possibility repeatedly today — asking how the world of pornography and age-verification technology have changed and, by implication, whether Reno and ashcroft Probably irrelevant. "This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a court has actually asked this exact question," Terry said. "It asked several times - whether these things were still good."

Which brings us back to curved lines and Gore Vidal.

"It's not actually a crazy question," Terry said of Alito's hypothesis, despite its odd reference. Texas considers sites like Pornhub obscene to minors, a standard that offers less legal protection and applies to works without redeeming artistic or other social value, while the FSC considers HB 1181 would capture content like sex education videos on its network. Thomas, meanwhile, referred to cable TV, claiming "we're in a completely different world" where adult content is now widely available - creating a more pressing responsibility to keep children away from it.

Overall, there was no clear winner today, said Gautam Hans, a Cornell University law professor and First Amendment expert. "In terms of the range of results, I think the range is huge," Hans told edge. The final outcome will depend largely on the extent to which the court decides to revisit its previous decisions. "I think there's a sense that technological filtering doesn't work, or isn't sufficient, or that we have more evidence over the next few decades that technological filtering is actually not a good substitute," he explain. The argument cuts both ways, though—because it's also unclear how effective age verification is. "I agree that technical filtering is not a panacea. I don't think there is a magic bullet," Hans added.

Many states have passed age verification rules for online porn, and FSC v. Paxton may have a direct impact on whether they are able to respond to legal challenges. But its impact may extend beyond pornography. Both TikTok v. wreath This case involves government interests—whether national security Tik Tokprotect the children forest stewardship council — should override free speech concerns. “We had two major cases within five days concerning whether traditional First Amendment laws still applied in the same way to Internet content,” Terry said.

Some state and federal lawmakers have called for stricter age verification on social media and sometimes proposed banning social media use by minors. Opening the door to porn verification doesn't guarantee those efforts will succeed, but Hans said it could make lawmakers more likely to try. "I think if the Supreme Court said some form of age verification might be constitutional, then if you were a state in other contexts, they would say, OK, extend that reasoning to other substantive areas of Internet regulation," he said.

For now, Hans has a modest proposal for the judges. "I think Alito needed to get some more modern references," he said.