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Supreme Court Justice Alito Sparks Controversy with Comments on Pornography

During a recent hearing, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito generated significant attention on social media after he posed a question comparing Pornhub to the former Playboy magazine. This inquiry arose amid discussions centered on Texas H.B. 1181, legislation that mandates commercial entities offering online content with over one-third deemed “sexual material harmful to minors” to implement reasonable age verification methods.

Immediately after Texas’s legislature passed the bill in June 2023, the Free Speech Coalition—a trade association representing the adult entertainment sector—filed a lawsuit contesting the law’s constitutionality.

During the court proceedings, Alito, age 74, raised a question to Free Speech Coalition attorney Derek Shaffer, inquiring about the percentage of content on Pornhub that can be classified as “not obscene as to children.” Following Shaffer’s affirmative response, Alito further probed, asking, “Is it like the old Playboy magazine? You have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Junior?” Shaffer, however, countered this comparison, suggesting that the nature of content on Pornhub is different.

Shaffer elaborated, noting that while there are discussions surrounding sexual wellness, such as recovery from hysterectomies, the overarching nature of discussions on Pornhub focuses more on legislative considerations regarding age-verification rather than literary content.

The implementation of Texas H.B. 1181 faced initial resistance when Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra issued a stay order. Nevertheless, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed this order, as documented by SCOTUS Blog. Ultimately, the Supreme Court declined the request to restore Ezra’s order and permit Texas to enforce the legislation temporarily, agreeing to review the Fifth Circuit’s decision in July 2024.

Following Alito’s comments during the recent hearing, reactions on social media ranged from disbelief to critique. One user remarked, “There is no way Samuel Alito read Playboy for the articles in his day,” highlighting the humorous skepticism surrounding the Justice’s inquiry into the nature of adult content.

Another user pointed out potential contradictions in Alito’s line of questioning, stating, “Setting aside the ridiculous insinuation being made by this line of questioning that suggests only certain calibers of speech should be free, are we seriously supposed to believe that Samuel Alito is not intimately familiar with the content available on PornHub dot com?” Such comments reflect a growing dialogue about the intersection of law, technology, and the adult entertainment industry.

Source
people.com