Court allows Indiana online age verification bill to take effect

INDIANAPOLIS ( WXIN ) — A federal judge has cleared the way for an Indiana law requiring adult websites to verify the age of users to take effect.

In late June, a judge blocked the law from going into effect, but on Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit lifted the injunction. The court called it “functionally identical” to a Texas law that took effect in April when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop it.

“We do not see any adequate reason why Texas’s law may be enforced pending
the decision on the merits in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, while Indiana’s may not be
enforced,” the ruling said. “Functionally identical statutes should be treated the same while the Supreme Court considers the matter.”

Critics, including the judge who initially blocked the legislation, called the bill “likely facially unconstitutional” under the First Amendment. On the other hand, supporters like Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita are saying it could protect minors from viewing sensitive material.

Court documents argued, “These tools [of requiring age verification] also allow parents to adjust what their children can see and when, such that younger children might be restricted from more websites than a child immediately before their 18th birthday.”

The court also acknowledged that filtering content may not necessarily be a catch-all method. The ruling said it’s possible to accidentally block content that does not require filtration and children are capable of finding ways to get around content blocking.

In a post to X , the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana wrote, “We’ll keep saying it: We can make the internet safer for minors without undermining the constitutional rights of adults.”

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