The Utah Attorney General’s Office is requesting a Utah District Court judge throw out a case over a recent law that requires adult content sites to verify the age of users.
Lawyers representing the Free Speech Coalition, a trade organization that works with the adult entertainment industry, sued in May and want the judge to block Utah’s law.
The law in question, SB 287, puts the burden of age verification on adult content sites. PornHub blocked people in the state from accessing the site because it said it couldn’t comply with the law. If a site isn’t pornographic but a third of its content is considered “harmful material to minors,” it also must verify the age of users.
A court filing submitted by the AG’s office argues the plaintiffs don’t have grounds to sue. David Wolf, the assistant attorney general, states the law “creates a private cause of action, and that state actors have no role in its enforcement.” Essentially, the case names the wrong defendants and no real harm has been proven, therefore the case should be dismissed.
The AG’s office did not return KUER’s interview request for this story.
Jeff Sandman, a lawyer representing the Free Speech Coalition, said the statute has a slew of constitutional violations, most notably the First Amendment. He said the law enacts “a content-based restriction on speech which requires courts to review it.”
“It keeps pornography away from adults who have a right to view it,” he said. “And it keeps some minors away from some materials that are not pornographic that probably do fit within the state's definition of material harmful to minors.”
He pointed to the website O.School, created by one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which aims was originally designed for adults but provides safe-sex resources for older teens in states with abstinence-only sex education in school. He said under Utah’s law, the website’s content could be considered “harmful material to minors” and as such mandate “an age verification screen precluding youth from accessing that material.”
Sandman added there are privacy concerns by forcing individuals to upload personal information to access a website with adult content.
Utah Republican state Sen. Todd Weiler sponsored the legislation under fire. While he conceded there are “some free speech implications” with the law, he hopes the Legislature did its due diligence to prevail against the lawsuit.
While free speech is protected by the First Amendment, Weiler said it’s still subjected to “reasonable restrictions on time, place and manner.” To Weiler, the question is: “Does this age verification process fit within one of those reasonable restrictions on free speech?”
Weiler added the courts are dipping into uncharted territory when it comes to internet content.
“The invention of the internet, it allowed people to anonymously access adult content,” he said. “And I feel like this lawsuit is kind of saying that there's a First Amendment right to access this content anonymously. And I'm not sure that's true.”
He believes the adult content industry was “caught off guard” when Louisiana passed a similar age verification law. From his perspective, the Utah lawsuit could set a precedent for future cases related to anonymity on the internet. The Free Speech Coalition also filed a second suit challenging Louisiana’s age verification law Tuesday night.
Sandman said he’s “confident” that the plaintiffs “will survive” the state’s motion to dismiss the case and be granted an injunction on the law.
If the court does block the law and Sandman’s clients win the entire case, Weiler said the Legislature “might have to tweak the law” based on the ruling to “properly honor First Amendment precedent.”
The court is set to hear arguments on the case on July 17.
