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US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law

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94 points mikece | 8 comments | 27 Jun 25 15:55 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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ceejayoz ◴[27 Jun 25 16:01 UTC] No.44397838[source]▶
So how broad is this?

Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like?

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vel0city ◴[27 Jun 25 16:08 UTC] No.44397903[source]▶
Let me start off saying I'm not a fan of this law. I don't think these requirements are workable with current technology, and I don't necessarily agree with the goals or that the goals are worth the side effects of the regulations.

> Can a state now require you to verify your age and identity to read a newspaper they don't like?

Most states have laws in place that regulate the sale and distribution of pornography and other "obscene" materials. This has been true for a long, long time. So yes, states have had the ability to require you to show ID to get a "newspaper" they don't like, assuming that newspaper is actually just pornography/obscenity. I don't think most people would argue Pornhub are news sites though.

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brianbest101 ◴[27 Jun 25 16:22 UTC] No.44398050[source]▶
But what counts as obscene is not well defined. Forget newspapers you could have to age gate Wikipedia
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vel0city ◴[27 Jun 25 16:29 UTC] No.44398129[source]▶
What counts as obscene has been defined for a while. And I don't think Wikipedia would count as obscene by the Miller test.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test

. Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,

. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Clearly the whole of Wikipedia is not trying to appeal to purient interests of the average person. I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way, and I'd argue it has serious political and scientific value.

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1. reverendsteveii ◴[27 Jun 25 16:54 UTC] No.44398320[source]▶
Even in this description you deferred to your own personal interpretation when you said "I don't think much of the content of Wikipedia is describing sexual content in a patently offensive way". Someone might, or might find it politically expedient to pretend that they do. After all, what's "offensive" is arbitrary.
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2. vel0city ◴[27 Jun 25 19:44 UTC] No.44399688[source]▶
You're misunderstanding my description.

You don't just need "someone". You'll find "someone" say anything, including that the Earth is flat, its 40,000 years old, and we're controlled by lizard people. The standard isn't "someone". You'll find someone who claims a table of ICD codes or a stop sign appeals to their prurient interest and is sexual in nature.

You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree. Not just any person applying any standard.

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3. dragonwriter ◴[27 Jun 25 19:50 UTC] No.44399736[source]▶
> You'd need "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" to say that under the Miller test and have the court/a jury to agree.

No, you just need the court to agree, you don't need to actually get the (non-existent, fictional abstraction) of “the average person” to say anything, you just need a judge to believe that.

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4. reverendsteveii ◴[27 Jun 25 20:04 UTC] No.44399806[source]▶
You're just kicking the can down the road. "Who decides what's obscene?" "The average person." "Who decides who the average person is?" In your own argument you keep pointing to how arbitrary and abusable this average person standard is as though that makes it somehow a better choice, but at the end of the day the idea of the "average person" is just someone dressing their own personal feelings in a pretty hat. There is no determining who the average person is or what they believe empirically, so the opinion of the person actually making the decision just gets labelled the opinion of the "average person". It does nothing but distance the people making these decisions from responsibility for them because they get to pretend they're just doing what everyone would want. It's 100% arbitrary.
replies(1): >>44400091 #
5. reverendsteveii ◴[27 Jun 25 20:05 UTC] No.44399817{3}[source]▶
in a nation of 400 million people you only need 5 to agree with you (if it's the right 5) and then the 6 of y'all are "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" and the 399,999,994 of us are out of touch deviants.
6. vel0city ◴[27 Jun 25 20:48 UTC] No.44400091{3}[source]▶
Would you also argue any standard related to a "reasonable person" to be entirely arbitrary? That's an incredibly similar standard used to determine negligence and similar concepts.
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7. bdangubic ◴[27 Jun 25 20:49 UTC] No.44400101{4}[source]▶
name one
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8. vel0city ◴[27 Jun 25 21:01 UTC] No.44400192{5}[source]▶
It's a pretty common standard used in a lot of places.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person

And other similar "vague" concepts arise elsewhere in the law, like someone "skilled in the art".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_having_ordinary_skill_i...