吃瓜直播

For years the government has tried to censor or burden access to sexual content in an attempt to block minors from accessing so-called explicit content. At the 吃瓜直播, we know that these efforts unlawfully burden adult access to sexual materials and do not actually keep kids safe. That鈥檚 why we鈥檙e headed back to the Supreme Court to challenge a Texas law that burdens access to sexual material in the name of protecting kids.

In FSC v. Paxton, we and the law firm Quinn Emanuel are a Texas law that forces people to share personally identifying information 鈥� potentially including a picture of themselves, biometric scans, or their government ID 鈥� before they can access websites that host some amount of sexual content.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claims this is a reasonable measure to protect minors. But the law will inevitably censor speech that is not pornographic, much less obscene. Even Texans who don鈥檛 watch porn could feel the effects. The law could potentially reach social media sites like Reddit, streaming services that host enough R-rated movies, or websites that focus on sexual health.

This is not new. For more than a century, restrictions on sexual content have been distorted, stretched, and misused for political gain. This has led to non-explicit content, like classical paintings and children鈥檚 picture books, being censored and suppressed.

As we head back to court, we examine the history of censoring sexual content 鈥� and why it so often ends up infringing on our First Amendment rights.

In 1873, Anthony Comstock, an influential anti-vice crusader, convinced Congress to pass a federal law criminalizing the distribution of 鈥渙bscene, lewd, or lascivious鈥� materials through the mail or by common carriers. While initially conceived of as a way to suppress information about sex or abortion, the Comstock Act never officially defined 鈥渙bscene鈥� and this quickly led to it being used to ban all sorts of materials 鈥� explicit or not. For example, Comstock successfully brought charges against an art gallery owner who sold reproductions of famous nude paintings 鈥� including Alexandre Cabanel鈥檚 masterpiece 鈥淭he Birth of Venus.鈥�

While the law has not been enforced for decades, it was never repealed. Today, extreme anti-abortion groups are trying to convince the future Trump administration to revive it.

In 1907, Chicago enacted the first film censorship law, requiring movie theater owners to get permission from a police-run board to show certain films. Second Deputy Superintendent Metellus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser, who served as the city鈥檚 chief censor, chose to eliminate movies with dancing because he believed they encouraged teenagers to go to dance halls, a source of 鈥渕uch crime and immorality.鈥� Funkhouser even banned an on how to dance the Hesitation Waltz, the Turkey Trot, and the Tango. Other cities followed Chicago鈥檚 lead and enacted laws of their own.

In 1954, a Senate subcommittee dedicated to investigating juvenile delinquency on comics books and their alleged propensity to corrupt youth. The committee's star witness, Fredic Wertham, used his standing as a prominent psychologist to peddle pseudoscience about the dangers of comic books and promote anti-gay fearmongering. Though the Senate didn鈥檛 pass legislation, the stoked public fear that comics were corrupting children and threatened to decimate the comic industry.

To save itself from financial ruin, the industry formed the Comic Codes Authority, which created a code for publishers to follow that would eliminate explicit content. To publish comics with the authority鈥檚 seal of approval, publishers needed to follow a dizzying array of restrictions, including bans on joking about divorce, vulgar language, and 鈥渟exual perversion鈥� or 鈥渟exual abnormalities.鈥� The code was used to LGBTQ+ characters, romance plots, and even mildly violent content, bringing the golden age of comics to an end and demonstrating how efforts to censor sexual content can quickly spiral out of control.

Book bans are nothing new, but in the last few years, local and state governments have banned books in public schools and libraries at reportedly and rates. These bans claim to stamp out 鈥減ornography鈥� and other sexual or vulgar content, but have instead been weaponized against content that politicians or governments do not like. In Iowa, for example, a new state law that prohibits public schools from carrying books that contain descriptions of "sex acts" has in thousands of removed books. But the removed titles are a far cry from Penthouse or Playboy. Instead, they include 鈥淚 Know Why the Caged Bird Sings鈥� by Maya Angelou, a children鈥檚 picture book about the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and 鈥淢aus鈥� by Art Spiegelman.

Public libraries have also been ordered to take books off shelves. In 2021, officials in Llano County, Texas from the county library system after community groups argued they were 鈥減ornographic filth.鈥� Some of the titles banned for being pornographic included children鈥檚 picture books about farting, books about LGBTQ+ people or characters, and books about race in the United States.

Much like these historic and current efforts at censorship, Texas鈥檚 age-verification law is another insidious attempt to dismantle our right to access information 鈥� and to express ourselves freely. 11 states have passed age-verification laws restricting access to sites that post sexual content since 2024, and several other states are reportedly considering such laws.

These age-verification laws draw a fence around ideas that the government finds objectionable. As today鈥檚 book bans, and other restrictions throughout history, show, such fences can have unexpected consequences for children and adults.

By taking this case, the Supreme Court has the chance to stem the tide of bills that wrongfully block sexual content and once again uphold all of our right to freely access constitutionally-protected speech 鈥� whether pornography or picture books.