Justice Alito Won’t Block Texas From Enforcing Internet Age Verification Law
from the what's-a-little-first-amendment-violation-among-texans? dept
The Supreme Court has made it pretty clear that age verification laws for websites violate the First Amendment. It’s had a couple of shots at this and really seemed to indicate that such laws are unconstitutional because age verification would block First Amendment-protected content from people who should be allowed to see it.
So, it was little surprise when a Texas district court ruled that Texas’ law saying adult content websites need to include a form of age verification was unconstitutional. The ruling was detailed and careful.
Which means it was no surprise when the Fifth Circuit did the Fifth Circuit thing and overturned the lower court decision. I already went into the weeds on how silly the opinion was, but it does this weird tapdance where it pretends it can effectively ignore those cases that discussed age verification, because those cases all involved “strict scrutiny” and the judges on the panel felt that this could use a lower standard of “rational basis.”
This is wrong for all the reasons we talked about in that last post, and you probably don’t need another 16 paragraphs in this article about the differences between strict scrutiny and rational basis.
The Free Speech Coalition, who brought the original case, have filed a cert petition for the Supreme Court to hear the case. On the same day, they also filed an emergency petition on what is generally known as the “shadow docket,” asking for the court to stop the enforcement of the law, at least until the Supreme Court has reviewed their cert petition.
Shadow docket applications from each circuit go up to specific Justices, and Justice Alito gets to review the 5th Circuit. This seems unfortunate, given he’s the Justice most likely to go along with their nonsense.
On Tuesday, Alito rejected the request for a stay (without comment).
The Free Speech Coalition put out a statement, mostly about the fact that they’re still focused on getting the main show, the cert petition, picked up by the Supreme Court, and this may just be a temporary bump in the road.
While the Supreme Court has denied our application to stay the Fifth Circuit’s decision upholding age verification requirements in Texas, our petition for full merits review before the Supreme Court remains pending. We look forward to continuing this challenge, and others like it, in the federal courts. The ruling by the Fifth Circuit remains in direct opposition to decades of Supreme Court precedent, and we remain hopeful that the Supreme Court will grant our petition for certiorari and reaffirm its lengthy line of cases applying strict scrutiny to content-based restrictions on speech like those in the Texas statute we’ve challenged. We will continue to fight for the right to access the internet without intrusive government oversight.
While perhaps not the most surprising turn of events, it is still a frustrating interim bit of nonsense. Hopefully the petition is granted and the full case can be heard by other Justices who might better remember how the First Amendment works.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, age verification, ken paxton, samuel alito, shadow docket, texas
Companies: free speech coalition
Comments on “Justice Alito Won’t Block Texas From Enforcing Internet Age Verification Law”
“Justice” Alito is a far-right politician in a robe.
The “Supreme Court” is little more than a Circle of Clerics.
All this bullshit is being dictated by a fascist minority.
None of this is legitimate governance worthy of any respect for the “laws” it produces.
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One day it will come out like it so often does for republicans that Alito is a pedophile.
Re:
You should offer some proof for that claim if you’re going to make an accusation that damning.
Re: Re:
He’s just playing the odds.
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Re: Re:
He is a republican.
He is male.
He is “christian”.
He believes raping children and forcing them to give birth is okay.
But I also didn’t claim he is one. I stated that we will likely learn like so many of his type that he is a evil and perverted person.
Re: Re: Re:
I repeat: You should offer some proof for that claim if you’re going to make an accusation that damning.
Distinction without a difference.
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Re: Re: Re:2
The circumstantial evidence is here:
Not really. Alito’s walking like a duck and quacking like a duck. We don’t need a DNA analysis to say he’s probably a duck.
Re: Re: Re:3
Either show me an explicit statement made by Alito that verifies that “[h]e believes raping children and forcing them to give birth is okay” or fuck off with your claim.
If you are going to claim that someone is a pedophile—and you are claiming that, regardless of any attempt to distinguish a prediction from a claim of fact—you actually will need that “DNA analysis”.
Re: Re: Re:4
Why are you leaping to the defense of Alito here anyway when this is some random guy who’s pissed off at Alito for the man being a shitty human being, and would like it to eventually be revealed that he’s an even shittier human being?
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Re: Re: Re:5
Liberals are still struggling with the fact that the GOP is a party of irredeemable baby fuckers.
Re: Re: Re:6
They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.
Re: Re: Re:6
Hey, Dr Fallacy! Welcome to the Techdirt comments section!
And I see you’ve brought a hasty generalization to share with the class!
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Re: Re: Re:7
I brought inconvenient reality to the comments section. You can shove your enlightened centrism up your ass.
Re: Re: Re:8
Bro just take your L like a big boi.
Re: Re: Re:5
Because we can criticize Alito and his conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court without claiming that Alito is a pedophile. I’m not saying Alito isn’t a morally heinous person—he absolutely is. What I am saying is lines like “he’s a Republican” or “the odds aren’t exactly against it” aren’t hard evidence to back up claims that Alito rapes children and/or supports the rape of children.
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Re: Re: Re:6
He’s part of the same conspiracy as the rest of the GOP baby fuckers.
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Re: Re: Re:4
It’s in the Dobbs decision, where he quoted a witch hunter and then sentenced raped little girls to die trying to give birth.
Re: Re: Re:5
By all means, pull the exact quote from Alito’s own words in Dobbs that proves he supports the rape of children.
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Re: Re: Re:6
Actions speak louder than words, Steve-O. His actions say he’s all for it.
Re: Re: Re:7
Other than “he voted to dismantle Roe v. Wade” (which also isn’t evidence in and of itself), what exact actions has Alito taken to show that he explicitly and knowingly supports the rape of children?
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Re: Re: Re:8
It is, though.
Re: Re: Re:9
No, it isn’t. A person can oppose abortion and still believe the rape of children is morally heinous.
You claimed Alito approves of the rape of children. “He’s a Republican”, “he’s a Christian”, and “he opposes abortion” are themselves claims of fact, but they are not empirical and explicit evidence that Alito supports the act of child rape. Your failure to cite any factual evidence that backs up your claims compels dismissal.
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Re: Re: Re:10
No. A person cannot believe the rape of children is heinous, and then force children who have been raped to endure months of torture.
Re: Re: Re:11
I’m sorry, but simple denial is not an argument. You’re going to have to do better, if you expect me to sign up for the 3 argument series.
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Re: Re: Re:12
Like I give a shit what some rightoid thinks.
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Re: Re: Re:13
Wrongoids are like that. Don’t give a shit, spew trollish idiocy everywhere.
Re: Re: Re:11
Does the Dobbs decision make that outcome more likely? Yes. Does Alito personally force children to endure childbirth? No. Has he ever explicitly advocated for, or approved of, the act of child rape? No.
Look, I get it: A child being made pregnant through rape is a horrible thing. They shouldn’t be forced to carry the pregnancy to term because of anti-abortion laws. I would assume that most people who oppose abortion would, at least publicly, agree with that position. And yes, anti-abortion laws that don’t let raped children get abortions are fucking heinous and should be done away with. But you’re not going to make me believe that Alito explicitly approves of child rape by pointing out the existence of those laws or Alito’s own disapproval of abortion. If you want me to believe that claim, you need to show me explicit and empirical evidence that backs it up. So either quote his explicit approval of child rape or fuck off back to Lefty Twitter.
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Re: Re: Re:12
“I didn’t force that family’s car off the cliff. I just cut out the guard rail.”
Re: Re: Re:13
“While someone else waited behind them to force them off the cliff.
Re: Re: Re:14
The legal status of abortion doesn’t prevent any actual act of child rape. (Just ask all the boys/men who were raped prior to Dobbs.) What it does concern is the aftermath of that rape, at least in regards to children who get pregnant from rape. Do some child rapists feel more confident about raping children to get them pregnant thanks to Dobbs? Probably. That still doesn’t mean Dobbs or the subsequent enactment of anti-abortion laws are, in and of themselves, an explicit endorsement of child rape.
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Re: Re: Re:15
It does, though. When you knowingly and intentionally compound something, that’s approval.
Re: Re: Re:16
I repeat: The legal status of abortion doesn’t prevent any actual act of child rape. Abortion being illegal would compound (and has already compounded) the suffering of a child rape survivor, sure. But abortion being legal wouldn’t necessarily prevent a child rapist from raping a child—at best, it would help ease the suffering of a raped child.
You’re going to need a better argument if you want me to believe that opposition to abortion, no matter what form it takes, is actually approval of child rape.
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Re: Re: Re:17
https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/missouri-lawmaker-defends-12-year-olds-getting-married/
You want to pretend this isn’t all a concerted effort to trap women and girls into pregnancies and traditional marriages, you go ahead. I’m not entertaining willful ignorance anymore. There’s a reason the party of pregnant children is also the party of married children.
All you’re doing is providing him plausible deniability, frankly.
Re: Re: Re:18
Yes, a not-zero number of Republican/conservative lawmakers approve of that sort of thing. But not all opposition to abortion is rooted in that idea. If it were, I’d have to believe that noted Democratic lawmaker Joe Biden’s on-the-record personal opposition to abortion is concrete proof that he wants Congress to legalize child marriage/child rape across the nation ASAP.
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Re: Re: Re:19
This phrase just herniated a disc trying to lift too much.
Re: Re: Re:17
What about the argument someone tried to make to me that rapists have the right to be parents as well. I replied they had the right to be parents, yes, but not to become parents through rape.
Re: Re: Re:13
Do you own the rights to false equivalence, or what?
Re: Re: Re:11
I disagree. While I personally believe that rape should always be a valid and legal reason to seek an abortion, I can see how opposing that would be consistent with also opposing the rape of children. Two wrongs don’t make a right, after all, and while I don’t agree that aborting a fetus prior to viability is inherently wrong, from the “pro-life” perspective, it is, and so that reasoning is valid from their perspective.
Whether or not we agree with their reasoning or goals, different pro-lifers do have different nuances to their position. There are pro-lifers who are in favor of allowing abortion in the case of rape of a child, and there are others who are not. You are simply dismissing all of those nuances as not just irrelevant but nonexistent based on an argument that is not objectively sound, so reasonable people can reasonably disagree.
Additionally, let’s look at the facts here. What Alito did was overturn a case that held that bans on abortions prior to a certain part of the pregnancy for any reason are unconstitutional. The overturned case was broader than simply cases of child rape abortions. One could argue that that was too broad while still supporting some restrictions on abortions, especially since “immoral” ≠ “unconstitutional”, nor should it. I do not agree that Roe should have been overturned, but that doesn’t mean that anyone who wanted it overturned must be in favor of the most extreme abortion bans that have since been imposed.
Look, the fact is that overturning Roe doesn’t constitute good evidence that Alito personally believes that child rape or forcing a child to go through childbirth should they be raped is okay or should be legal. Just because some Republicans do believe that doesn’t mean they all do, even if essentially all Republicans today are reprehensible to at least some degree. You’re engaging in both hasty generalization and false equivalence.
Re: Re: Re:10
If a person believes rape is morally heinous, but think that imposeing the psychological and physical abuse of carrying that child to term, including extensive medical debt, is not morally heinous, but in fact morally virtuous, I submit it is a reasonable conclusion the moral injustice they are concerned with is not in fact the rape. Indeed, I submit that if forcing that abuse is morally virtuous, you would naturally excuse the “moral violation” of the rape out of a belief the ends were justified by the means, a belief spelled out by your belief that the continued and forced emotional and physical abuse of a rape victim is a moral virtue, because that abuse results in a child.
Re: Re: Re:11
Except that they don’t believe that children should get pregnant; at most, they believe that two wrongs don’t make a right, and abortion is a wrong that is not justified by saving children. Not to mention the pro-lifers who do allow for abortion in the case of child rape.
Re: Re: Re:6
He didn’t say it out explicitly, he just went out of his way too make it possible and continues defending that position.
Re: Re: Re:2
Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Or maybe he should prove his innocence like he forces so many victims to do.
Re: Re: Re:3
I mean, his victims go through the wringer regardless of their guilt.
Re: Re: Re:3
You made a factual claim. You now carry the responsibility of proving it. That’s the way it works in a court of law, and that’s how it works in a reasonable discussion of facts.
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Re: Re: Re:4
If someone punches you and walks away, then I walk up and punch you, I’m effectively approving of the original punch.
When a little kid gets raped, and then gets put through several more months of torture and possible death in response, that response is suggestive of support for the original act whose trauma it’s compounding.
Re: Re: Re:5
As I said in another comment: A person can oppose abortion and still believe the rape of children is morally heinous. And yes, believing that a child made pregnant through rape shouldn’t be able to get an abortion is also morally heinous. But I fail to see how opposing abortion is, in and of itself, an explicit approval of the act of child rape. That it could be implicit approval, I will grant. But I doubt you’ll find a significant number of anti-abortion activists who will go on record as saying a 12-year-old girl should be forced to have a baby if she’s made pregnant via rape—and that includes Alito.
Re: Re: Re:6
As I said, when your response to trauma is to compound it with more trauma, that’s implicit approval. You can play all the fun little word games you want. But when you hurt people simply because they’ve already been hurt, all you’re doing is jumping in the dogpile on top of the survivor.
Alito is part of the dogpile.
We don’t have to have them go on the record with explicit approval. Actions speak louder than words.
Re: Re: Re:7
That isn’t enough to prove he explicitly endorses the act of child rape.
Re: Re: Re:8
It’s enough to make it more likely than not.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Again, actions speak louder than words. You’re looking for him to explicitly say “I support child rape.”
His actions have already knowingly supported child rape.
Re: Re: Re:9
The Dobbs decision and the subsequent passage of anti-abortion laws have opened the door for an increased number of child rapes—that, I will grant you. But to claim or imply without evidence that he knowingly endorsed that decision for that purpose is to make a bullshit argument because “he’s a Republican”.
I don’t like Alito, his politics, or the Dobbs decision. He’s a piece of shit and he should be remembered as such. But if you want to criticize him, you can do it without calling him a pedophile.
Re: Re: Re:10
At a minimum, he knew it would happen, and he approved.
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Re: Re: Re:10
He knowingly played a key role in the torture of child rape survivors, and in perpetuating more child rape.
Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, hangs out in a flock of ducks, and makes things better for ducks.
The man’s a duck.
Re: Re: Re:11
As I said above, abortions being legal wouldn’t actually prevent an act of child rape if the rapist truly wanted to carry it out. To wit: In the 50 years that Roe was the law of the land, child rapes didn’t magically stop happening. And I’m sure a not-zero number of child rape survivors who got legal abortions were taken to have those abortions by their rapist.
I repeat: You’re going to need a better argument if you want me to believe that opposition to abortion, no matter what form it takes, is actually approval of child rape. The same goes for you wanting me to believe that Alito himself explicitly approves of child rape.
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Re: Re: Re:12
Nirvana fallacy. Not doing this.
Re: Re: Re:13
Arguing “opposing to abortion equals approval of child rape” is like arguing “legalizing abortion will prevent child rape”: They may have a grain of truth within them, but they’re still bullshit arguments.
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Re: Re: Re:6
Stop trying to white-knight for the shitpile of a man that is Alito. Christ, this is embarrassing.
The guy said he wished it would turn out that Alito is even more of a human being than it’s shown he is today, and then you come in asking for incontrovertible proof, as if this wasn’t just the guy venting about how shitty Alito and this decision is.
Re: Re: Re:7
“Even more of a horrible human being”, is what I meant.
Re: Re: Re:7
Regardless, given what we know about Alito and the GOP, it’s reasonable enough to just assume he’s a pedo.
Re: Re: Re:7
Accusing someone of being a pedophile, even as a “prediction”, is a bold accusation. Society treats sex crimes (especially against children) as worse than murder precisely because they are nothing but an expression of hedonism and selfishness at the cost of violating someone else. Rape can never be justified—the rape of children, even moreso. So if someone makes a claim that a public figure is a pedophile or supports pedophilia, I’d like to see the proof of that claim. Otherwise, that someone is making an inflammatory accusation that borders on defamation.
Re: Re: Re:8
You’ve described the right-wing clerics’ entire careers.
Re: Re: Re:5
Nonsense. They can be two independent and unrelated provocations leading to a similar result. Approving of one does not automatically mean I approve of the other.
If a car thief is arrested for murder (that they are innocent of), and then later the same thief is also arrested for stealing cars, my approval of the second arrest does not mean I approve of the first one.
Re: Re: Re:4
Hahaha.
Except for all the laws and all the cases where it works exactly the opposite.
Re: Re: Re:2
Hey there, Stephen. I see you’ve brought circular reasoning to share with the class!
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I can see now why pirate iptv site with 70 million subscribers, up to a million oline at once and almost 200 thousand channels now only accepts Bitcoin for payment
They have about 3500 porn channels
They should not have to worry about age verification laws because they are in Singapore
Age verification laws are not enforceable in Singapore
A company in Singapore does not have to comply with American
And they are only an aggregator. Other iptv ollrtstors
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God, would you just fuck off back to 4chan already?
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There are a million ways around ways to get around Texas’s age verification. But none of that is the point.
This was never about porn. Porn is the pretense. This is about making sure abused LGBTQ kids don’t have access to support.
They’re starting with porn so they can make the argument about porn. The end goal is to make sure queer kids don’t know about things like the Trevor Project.
Re: Re: 'That site talks about sexual abuse, sex is in the name therefore it's not kid appropriate!'
With a little dash of ‘preventing kids of any orientation from accessing material that might let them spot abuse and know what to do if they or someone they know is experiencing it’, but I’m sure that’s just a complete coincidence.
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This iptv site is going to run itself into the ground
Now they require payment in ethereum. I can buy Bitcoin but not ethereum
Are they that afraid?
They dont have to be
Arrest warrants are in computers
With the money this site is making they hire hackers in the dark web to erase them
70 million subscribers x 15 USD a month?
That is more than enough to go on the dark web and hire hackers to take care of that
Erase the warrants and avoid extradition
China has some of the best hackers in the world who can do that.
The cfaa has no jurisdiction in China and does not apply
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Re: Re:
They are crazy to what they did now when they have the chance to make a lot more money with even more subscribers.
With 3500 porn channels, they have a huge market in Texas and those other states and no age verification as well as 800 movie channels are over 1000 sports channels out of 170000 xhannels
They are shooting themselves in the foot only accepting ethereum and not Bitcoin
With the population south of the mason Dixon line at 70 million plus, only counting Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia means that many more potential customers they are losing
I don’t know the total population of the South, but it could as many as 100 million potential customers not counting other age verification states
Why did the petition go to Alito? Wouldn’t Roberts as the Chief Justice receive these? And if it did have to go to someone else, could they have chosen anyone besides the most conservative member?
The Fifth Circuit relied on Ginsberg v. New York in upholding the law. They really need to make the argument that Ginsberg and Reno v. ACLU are not in tension. Reno does not stand for the proposition that children have the right to view pornography. It stands for the proposition that attempts to restrict children from pornography cannot infringe on the rights of adults, which the Texas law clearly does.
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Per the article: “Shadow docket applications from each circuit go up to specific Justices, and Justice Alito gets to review the 5th Circuit.”
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Just one more reason the shadow docket (especially with how it’s currently used) is complete corrupt garbage.
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I can see now why one pirate IPTV site, with 70 million subscribers, as many as 1 million users on at once, and almost 200,000 channels has gone bitcoin only
There are about 3400 porn channels included, along with nearly every TV network on the planet.
If they are worried, they dont have to be.
Because they are in Singapore, they are not subject to any American laws, including age verification.
This site is different than most. Other IPTV providers connect to them them, and ply their streams. This site is no more than an aggretator, where others pay them to share cable TV and the like all over the world, and the people who pay them to stream get a cut of the montly revenues.
You pay to stream through them, you get a cut of the revenues.
I would not be surprised if people in Texas, and states with age verification laws are using pirate IPTV sites like this one.
There is no way that age verification can be enforced on a service in Singapore as they are not subject to any American laws
Even RedTube and Playboy has a few porn channels on there now.
I would not be surprised if PornHub or xHamster start putting channels on this site.
Age verification laws will only make the operators of a few pirate IPTV sites richer than s*it.
And there is no way this site can be prosecuted anywhere in the USA for violating age verification laws as US laws do not apply to this site
If you run a pirate IPTV site and have any porn channels, you are about to start making a lot more money when people figure out they can come to you for their porn, as well as every sports and movie channel on the planet.
A lot of IPTV sites carry Shy Racing Australia, and I will be watching the Kentucky Derby on it this Saturday.
Subscribers like me who have services like that will be enjoying the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
If you have such a service, you can watch on Sky Racing UK and Sky Racing Australia, 6:57 PM EDT post time
Re:
repeat spam is poor spam. Try harder.
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Re: Re:
Since I do mention the name of that IPTV specifically, only that it exists, it cannot be considered spam
I am merely pointung out that IPTV sites like that so not have to follow USA laws
Re: Re: Re:
Again.
While China et al don’t have to follow American law (mostly due to jurisdictions and crossborder litigation fees), the pirate sites have to follow the laws where they do business in.
And even for countries that are “under” the Chinese trade “umbrella”, they’ll follow American norms because, oh would you look at that, there’s trade deals, diplomacy and the 7th Pacific Fleet, and the PLAN isn’t doctrinally ready to do anything more than launch missiles and maybe nuclear ordanance across disputed territories.
So…
Yeah, they’ll follow American rules, because even the Chinese can’t reliably follow the rules of their own country, despite America being more than happy be stop pretending they are trying to uphold the order they themselves made.
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Re: Re: Re:2
This site is in Singapore, not China
There is a differebce
They get away with it by blocking Singapore users.
By blocking Singapore users, they are not subject to prosecution there, a d can ply their IPTV anywhere else in the world
Abd they are like a pirate version of YouTube, or the old Justin TV. Other people pay them to stream through their platform.
However, like I said, Texas Ave other states cannot enforce their age verification laws outside the country
IPTV sites in China block chine users ave sites in Russia block users in Russia
This is how these big sites get away with it
They are allowed to stream anruad as long as they block users in their home countries So they can stream whatever they want, as long as they block access from their home country.
Singaoore is that way too. As long as they do not break Singapore law, no problem.
One site in Iran dues the same. They block users in Iran while streaming thecrwdt of the world.
As long as these countries get the taxes owed, that is all that matters
The countries are getting a big chunk of taxes so they are not likely to do anything soon
Re: Re: Re:
Nah it’s SPAM bro. Now fuck off.
Perhaps those hand picked by the federalist society AREN’T the best and brightest legal minds…
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Alito is a hero
Hopefully and keeping fingers crossed the Supreme Court lets the 5th circuit stand. While I agree on KOSA which right now is trying to be sneaked into an FAA bill that is being debated in the senate with Sen Thune support. Porn is NOT FREE SPEECH. The porn companies need to figure out a way to get their customers ages. KOSA is too broad even if it passes in the FAA bill courts will probably rule it unconstitutional. Porn in truth is constitutional but you must be an adult to access it. No one is blocking your right to porn it’s just you need to prove you are 18 and above. This is the law Techdirt. Sadly you mis represent the 1st amendment which shows your political bias rather then be fair and balanced like Fox News use to be.
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Sure.
Let’s also age gate the Bible and arrest every sicko who forces children to read it.
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According to a bunch of First Amendment jurisprudence, it actually is.
And how do you expect them to do this without risking liability for false/failed identification, children using sites after parents have entered their ID, and the hacking of servers on which the ID info rests?
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Re: Re:
Relocate outside the country
If they are not in the USA they do not have to follow American laws
Then go Bitcoin only for payment
-problen solved
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Ok, groomer.
Re:
“Porn is NOT FREE SPEECH”
There’s a movie called The People vs Larry Flint. It will help disabuse you do that notion bro.
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It's not a 1A violation
You’re just wrong and don’t know the law very well.
Yes, states can bar minors from accessing porn. Yes, in order to do that requires some form of age verification. No, it’s not different just cuz it’s on the internet. No, most of your “precedents” are not actually that.
That doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea, or practical, or that it sucks that in age checking minors you essentially deanonymize the adults too. Yeah, totally the whole thing is ill-advised. Doesn’t change that it is perfectly legal for a state to demand you show ID before buying a porn magazine and nothing changes when you move that to the internet.
The 5th has essentially said they’re very likely to rule in Texas’s favor. SCOTUS will not take up an appeal. You’ve already lost, because you are wrong. You are just an idiot who doesn’t know the law very well.
Re:
But it isn’t legal for a state to demand ID before it lets you access speech based on the content of that speech—and to be clear, Texas’s law restricts speech than isn’t mere pornography. Per the district court ruling mentioned in the article (edited to exclude citations):
In fact, I’mma steal a page from Chaz Stevens’s playbook for a moment here.
The Bible has plenty of sexual content in it. I doubt you’ll see any lawmaker willing to say “the Bible should be age-gated”. And yet, under Texas’s age verification law, any site that contains the uncensored text of the Bible would be required to age-gate itself or open itself up to the liability of violating that law. To say otherwise is to show the unconstitutionality of the law and the hypocrisy of those who passed it.
Re: Re: Age-gating the bible
Sir;
Brilliant idea, and how would you go about doing this? As you stole a page from me (grin!), let me steal one back from you.
I’d be all in for this project.
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Yes, it is, actually. For many, many, many decades you have had to show an ID (or just be obviously old enough) to buy a Playboy or Penthouse in most (all?) states. You are literally making this up. (and y’know, maybe MM lied to you)
What is this relativistic shiite? “Get to ‘know’ them in the biblical sense” is a joke for a reason. You can call “Jebediah lay with Edith, and knew her” (paraphrasing, I haven’t read it in 20 years but it’s all like that) “sexual content” I guess. Nevermind that very few porn laws have ever applied to simple text in modern times (and if they did most romance novels would be banned) trying to lump the most euphemistic of euphemisms in with graphic porn is pretty hilariously dumb, even for you.
You just feel free to say any old dumb thing, don’t you?
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For pornography? Sure. But for content considered “adult” in nature that isn’t pornography? Not a chance in hell. Or perhaps you can show me the law that says I have to show ID before I can purchase a copy of Flowers in the Attic.
It’s called “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”. If the Texas law requires websites with “adult content” to age-gate themselves, it should follow that sites displaying the contents of the Bible—which contains depictions of rape and sexual assault—must also age-gate themselves. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that the law should have a carve-out for the Bible, which I can assure you would be a First Amendment violation.
Irrelevant. Simple text can be pornographic; just ask everyone who’s ever posted/read a smutfic on AO3. To exclude the contents of the Bible from this law because “it’s simple text” is to privilege certain expressions of speech above others even if the content is similar, which is a First Amendment violation.
Whether the Bible contains graphic and detailed depictions of sex is irrelevant. It still references and depicts rape and sexual assault, which is most assuredly “adult content”. Other than “because it’s the Bible” and any other related defenses (e.g., “historical importance”), for what reason should a video of consensual sex between two adults be age-gated while a book with the most milquetoast depictions/mentions of rape is exempt from the same age-gate?
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That was some insane drug fueled cope.
Yeah buddy, we’re talking about porn. GTFO.
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whooosh
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Oh, the “You don’t understand the law” guy is back again.
You are one errogant dude that can’t stop humiliating himself.
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MM writes entire blog posts telling Jurists with 5o year careers they don’t know the law as well as he does, and are ruling wrong. And then they directly contradict him, writing new precedents, making him more wrong.
Just like this case.
But sure, I’m the one embarrassing myself.
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Mike also has two of the finest legal minds on the Internet to ask for help, Eric Goldman and Ken White.
And both have written articles for the site as well.
Oh, sure, they’re not insurrection supporters like Alito and Thomas and the Fifth Circuit, but it’s a hell lot more than your blind faith in insurrectionist Supreme Court judges trying to rewrite 1A case law.
At least be honest and admit your harassment is also your confession you want to fucking murder us all.
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hahahahaha…..no
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So on one hand we have prior jurisprudence (including that of SCOTUS) when it comes to age verification that says that the 5th circuit is wrong, on the other hand we have Alito denying the petition to stay the 5th circuits decision without comment – which is kind of telling and something you missed in your errogance.
This is the judge who thinks same-sex marriage oppresses Christians, who rails against the secularization since that also supposedly oppresses Christians because they aren’t allowed to force their beliefs on others. He is letting his faith interfere in how cases should be decided.
You might be okay by having the law be decided by applying religious beliefs but any honest person with a dash of integrity thinks that is wrong because we don’t live in a religious theocracy.
Now, take your stupidity elsewhere.
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It absolutely does not. MM is lying to you and claiming that. Different thing.
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There’s this amazing thing called the internet, you may have heard of it? It contains all sorts of wonderful things and information, it also contains errogant people like you who stupidly thinks everyone disagreeing with you are wrong, lying or whatever stupid reason you can dredge up from your underutilized brain.
That your walnut-sized brain can’t understand case-law and jurisprudence is entirely your own fault and you are also totally incapable of learning from all the humiliations heaped on you every time you are proven wrong. Do you get off on behaving like this? Because that would be a weird but reasonable explanation.
That you aren’t particularly smart is obvious, because your go-to answer is always some variation of “lol, no”, “you are lying” or “cuz you’re stupid”.
In regards to case-law for the topic at hand, did you miss the whole CDA thing that got struck down? Reno v ACLU? FCC v Pacifica Foundation? Miller v California? Ashcroft v ACLU?
What a fucking simpleton you are.
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You do I now that we can see that judges have their rulings changed All. The. Time. during appeals. They very much get the law wrong, regularly and a as a matter of course.
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Porn should have age verification
Online porn should and will have age verification. No one said porn should be illegal. The Texas Attorney General is 1000% correct here. Sorry techdirt has mislead you to what the 1st amendment is. Porn must be regulated. Techdirt is showing leftist favoritism to laws
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nice spam troll
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The porn industry did have age verification in the 90s.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t work then.
The videogame industry has also adopted what the porn industry did, albeit independently, in various manners up to and including demanding ID verification.
Still didn’t work.
Turns out, credit cards are terrible indicators of being over 18 and identity theft is STILL a thing. Oh, and pinky swearing you’re over 18 also doesn’t work. Or asking weird adult knowledge questions. Or signatures.
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Porn should have age verification
Online porn should and will have age verification. No one said porn should be illegal. The Texas Attorney General is 1000% correct here. Sorry techdirt has mislead you to what the 1st amendment is. Porn must be regulated. Techdirt is showing leftist favoritism to laws
This is a little harsh on Alito. While I don’t doubt he voted against a stay, he was joined by at least four others – it does say “referred by him to the Court” which means that a majority vote.
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It says “referred to the court” was denied.
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no, the correct way to parse this is: “(the application presented to Alito and by him referred to the Court) was denied”.
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Are you kidding me?
Talk about your axe-grinding, clickbait headlines, Sam Alito is solely responsible for Mikey not getting what he demanded? Wow.
This pernicious editorialism is tainting Techdirt’s trustworthiness, at least outside the range of fellow-haters. The Democrat-leaning Justices can do or say no wrong, but those who aren’t get called out by name, whether they are solely responsible or not.
This was a bad ruling, sure, but blaming it all on one person in the headline tells me that I will absolutely not be getting anything resembling the straight story.
I want to read TD for news, not a constant stream of editorial opinions masked as and mixed into the actual, unbiased news.
And anyone who characterizes me as a far-Right whacko is completely wrong, as I’m a libertarian-leaning radical centrist. I don’t want all the partisan bullsh1t mixed into my news. Is this a straight news site, or a partisan site? If it’s partisan, and be honest, and declare your pro-Progressive agenda openly.
Won’t happen, because Mr Masnick truly believes he’s delivering nothing but straight, unbiased coverage. That’s the problem, and that’s why I can’t trust anything here that rips on the Right. That, I have to verify elsewhere.
Now vote me down for not being Progressive enough all you like, but you’ll be doing it to defend editorial activism. “Down with the RNC, the DNC must have exclusive control!” is a horrible stance to take.
The Republican grass roots once tried to wrest control of their party from the entrenched power brokers. Who was a big help in stopping that reform attempt? Progressives, who consistently portrayed the movement as a pack of evil whackos who must be stopped.
And like that, any possibility of reform was destroyed, primarily by coverage from Progressive journalists, like Mr Masnick. He’s only fueling anger and resentment with shit like this, because I’m nothing at all like a Republican, and he’s driving me away with that hatred.
Now I repeat, go ahead and hate me for not conforming, and hate what I have said because it doesn’t fit your preconceptions. I won’t cater to feelings for popularity, and any hatred that doesn’t engage my points directly exposes itself for wanting to shift things to a field where I will lose because of other things. Go ahead, tell me all about what I “am”, by assuming things that suit you.
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It’s not what I demanded.
And, yes, items from the 5th Circuit go to Alito to decide on.
This site is an opinion site. Always has been.
Perhaps you’re confusing us with someone else?
Again, from day 1, 27 years ago, this has always been an opinion site.
Did you take a wrong turn on the way in?
Nothing in this story is partisan?
It was referred to Alito, because that’s how it works.
No. I believe that I am delivering my opinion, backed up by facts. Including that this… was sent to Alito to decide because he’s the justice for the 5th Circuit. As explained in the article.
I’m not a progressive, and nothing in this article was about political partisan anything. It’s just legitimately that this request went to Alito. Because that’s how this process works.
I gave my opinion on why it’s unfortunate, given that it seems to go against precedent.
But none of that is partisan. If this had been in the 9th Circuit, I would have complained just the same, and called out that Justice Kagan blocked it, because… Justice Kagan gets shadow docket requests from the 9th Circuit.
You seem to think that me accurately pointing out that Alito gets 5th Circuit stay requests is somehow partisan.
Which… kinda says a LOT more about your own partisan views than mine.
We criticize dumb decisions here no matter who makes them. We criticize Democrats all the time. We criticize Justices appointed by Dems when they make bad decisions.
The only thing we care about here are basic rights.
I’m sorry you’re too blinded by nonsense. But given that you seem to be, I don’t really care if you are driven away. Go away.
Shadow Docket
So Alito can just unilaterally deny the application for a stay without the other justices?
So we don’t want to kill rapists but we do want to kill innocent babies. Do I have that right?