On Thursday, April 25 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET, the Free Speech Coalition invites members of the adult industry to join us for a virtual discussion with Joe Cohn, a strong advocate for the adult industry’s rights who is running for Congress in November. Click here to register for the event Prior to running for office Joe worked for both the ACLU and FIRE, assisting and supporting FSC in our fight against age verification. This virtual event will be a discussion with Joe on the importance of protecting the rights of adult entertainment industry professionals. Joe is a strong advocate for the adult i ..read more

Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the trade and advocacy organization for adult businesses and workers, will host a special briefing on the impact of derisking practices across the financial services industry. Panelists will address the ways in which derisking impacts their ability to build and operate businesses, earn income and survive in a world increasingly dominated by digital transactions. This webinar is intended for adult industry members, Congressional staff, regulators, financial services professionals, and other stakeholders. The webinar comes on the one year anniversary of the FSC’s gro ..read more

Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Alison Boden testified against AB-3080, an age-verification bill introduced in the California Assembly, and heard yesterday in the Assembly’s Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. Despite widespread opposition from groups including Electronic Frontier Foundation, Woodhull Action Fund, Netchoice and an array of sex ed, LGBTQ+, reproductive rights advocates, a motion to pass the bill to the Judiciary committee succeeded. AB-3080 would require sites with more than one-third “material harmful to minors” to scan government IDs or otherwise verify the ..read more

The Free Speech Coalition Board of Directors has chosen Streamate Executive Liz Rek to join the Board, effective immediately. Rek, an industry veteran of over twenty years, was appointed to fill the seat of long-time Board member Reed Lee, who passed in late December. “Free Speech Coalition is a vital force in building our industry and defending our rights,” says Rek. “I have been a champion of FSC for years, and now, at a time of unprecedented challenges, I’m eager to be a more integral part of the fight. FSC has shown that when we stand together, when we stand up to censorship and discrimin ..read more

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 12, 2024 MEDIA CONTACT: ACLU Media, media@aclu.org  FSC Media, press@freespeechcoalition.com WASHINGTON – Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, the Free Speech Coalition and others today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that, if left standing, would improperly burden free speech online. The petition for certiorari was filed in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which challenges an unconstitutional age-verification provision in Texas’s H.B. 1181.  “Though it purpo ..read more

This afternoon, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed HB2586, a bill that would have mandated invasive age verification for visitors to sites with “material harmful to minors.” We completely agree with Governor Hobbs that legislation to protect children’s online safety “should be bipartisan and work within the bounds of the First Amendment, which this bill does not.” FSC led opposition to the bill, and traveled to Arizona multiple times to speak with legislators, journalists, allies and constituents. HB2586 ultimately passed the legislature on a party-line vote, and opposition to the bill came f ..read more

Free Speech Coalition has called on Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs to veto AZ’s dangerous and unconstitutional age-verification law for adult consumers. In a letter sent hours after the passage of the law on Monday, FSC Executive Director Alison Boden pointed out that despite our support for measures that would actually protect children, HH2586 would not only violate First Amendment and privacy rights, it would harm young peoples’ access to much-needed information, writing: The law is written so broadly that the “description” or “depiction” of nudity, sexuality or sexual activity can create lia ..read more

Today, the Arizona legislature passed HB 2596, despite overwhelming opposition from Democrats. The final step in the process is for the Democratic Governor to sign or veto the bill within 5 days or it will become law automatically. If you live in Arizona, now is the time to tell the Governor that she should veto this dangerous and ineffective bill. email the governor now!   If you don’t live in Arizona, please share our Tweet and/or this link with friends who do: https://www.defendonlineprivacy.com/az/action.php   ..read more

Earlier this week, FSC and our co-plaintiffs filed a motion in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals requesting that the court stay the mandate — in other words, prevent Texas from enforcing the law — while we file for a writ of certiorari to secure review of the decision before the Supreme Court. The motion was denied this morning, meaning Texas can continue to enforce its law for the time being. While today’s ruling wasn’t entirely surprising, we were again encouraged by Judge Higginbotham’s dissent, in which he argues that the stay should have been granted as the law “conflicts with Supre ..read more

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