[briandear]

The EU is far ahead of Texas on this. Spain is launching a “porn passport” system (Cartera Digital Beta) using government-issued digital ID to verify age, and France has already attempted something similar. Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, platforms—including porn sites—must implement age checks for EU users regardless of where the site is based. And this isn’t being led by “conservative Christians”—Spain’s Socialist PM Pedro Sánchez is pushing it. I know we’re talking “America” here, but this isn’t some puritanical American concept.

This article overreads the Supreme Court’s decision. It upheld a narrow Texas law requiring age verification to access adult content, applying intermediate scrutiny and emphasizing in-state regulatory authority. It didn’t grant states power to prosecute across borders, nor did it change existing limits on state jurisdiction.

The argument relies on a stack of fallacies:

Post hoc — assumes the ruling causes harms that depend on future, hypothetical laws.

Slippery slope — claims this leads to extraterritorial prosecution, which the ruling doesn’t support.

Appeal to fear — frames state level regulation as existential threat without legal basis.