The judge said Tuesday that an industry group representing adult entertainers could not sue Utah officials over the law because of how it’s written.
The law is designed to limit access to materials considered vulgar or explicit.
U.S. District Court Judge Ted Stewart did not address the group’s arguments that the law unfairly discriminates against certain kinds of speech, violates the First Amendment rights of adult entertainment providers and intrudes on the privacy of individuals who want to view sexually explicit materials.
He said they couldn’t sue Utah officials because of how the law calls for age verification to be enforced.
The law doesn’t direct the state to pursue or prosecute adult websites and instead gives Utah residents the power to sue them and collect damages if they don’t take precautions to verify users’ ages.
In passing new age verification requirements, Utah lawmakers argued that because pornography has become easily accessible online, it posed a threat to children in their developmentally formative years when they began learning about sex.
The law does not specify how adult websites should verify users' ages.
Some, including Pornhub, have blocked their sites in Utah, while others have experimented with third-party age verification services.
Opponents argued that age verification laws for adult websites not only infringe upon free speech, but also threaten digital privacy because it’s impossible to ensure that websites don’t retain user identification data.
The Free Speech Coalition, which is also challenging a similar law in Louisiana, vowed to appeal the dismissal.
State Sen. Tod Weiler said Utah would likely expand its digital identification programs in the future to make it easier for websites to comply with age verification requirements for both adult and social media platforms.
The state passed a first-in-the-nation law in March to similarly require age verification for anyone who wants to use social media in Utah.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes applauded the dismissal and called age verification requirements “reasonable safeguards for our children.”
