Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a brief with the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”), asking it to uphold House Bill 1181, a Texas law requiring pornography companies to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from obscene online material. Texas will argue the case before SCOTUS on January 15, 2025.

Immediately after Texas passed HB 1181 in 2023, pornography distributors sued to stop the law. However, Attorney General Paxton won a major victory allowing Texas to enforce HB 1181 while litigation continues. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Texas’s age verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment. Now the pornography companies have appealed to the Supreme Court, asking for the Fifth Circuit’s ruling to be overturned.

“Let me put this simply: these companies do not have a right to expose children to pornography,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Texas has a clear interest in protecting children, and we have been successful defending this commonsense age verification law against a powerful global industry. Several of these companies, when faced with a choice between protecting children from pornography and complying with Texas law, have stopped doing business in Texas. Good riddance. Thank you to the numerous organizations and elected leaders who submitted amicus briefs in support of Texas’s law. I look forward to making our case at the Supreme Court of the United States.” 

Dozens of States, lawmakers, and experts submitted amicus briefs supporting Attorney General Paxton’s defense of the age verification law, including a coalition of two dozen State Attorneys General, a group of more than 60 lawmakers from 15 States, members of the Texas Senate, and more than 20 U.S. Congressmen and Senators. Numerous medical experts and organizations such as the Foundation for Addiction Research urged the Supreme Court to uphold the law due to the dangerous impact pornography has on children. 

Attorney General Paxton has aggressively enforced the law while litigation continues, suing Aylo Global Entertainment, the operator of pornography websites including Pornhub, for refusing to follow the law. Rather than institute the required age verification measures, Pornhub opted to shut down its site entirely in Texas. Companies violating the age verification requirements required by HB 1181 will be subject to fines of up to $10,000 per day, an additional $10,000 per day if the corporation illegally retains identifying information, and $250,000 if a child is exposed to pornographic content due to not properly verifying a user’s age. 

To read Texas’s brief, click here.

To browse the briefs submitted in support, click here.