Internet lobby seeks Supreme Court escape from Mississippi’s social media crackdown for kids

WASHINGTON (CN) — Internet advocates sought the Supreme Court’s help on Wednesday to prevent Mississippi’s age verification law for social media from going into effect.

NetChoice, a lobbying organization for tech giants, said Mississippi citizens would lose access to fully protected speech across social media websites if House Bill 1126 were allowed to become law.

“Whatever authority states may have to restrict access to speech unprotected for minors, states may not dictate what fully protected speech is appropriate for minors,” NetChoice wrote in its emergency appeal.

Last year, Mississippi lawmakers passed House Bill 1126, restricting minors’ access to social media platforms. Under the statute, apps like Facebook, X and YouTube must verify users’ ages, blocking minors from accessing the platforms without express consent from a parent.

Social media websites must also make efforts to limit children’s exposure to harmful material such as self-harm, eating disorders, substance use disorders and suicidal behaviors. Platforms that violate the law could face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and criminal charges under the state’s deceptive trade practices statute.

HB 1126 was scheduled to go into effect in July 2024, but a lower court blocked the state from enforcing it, finding that the law was likely unconstitutional. However, the Fifth Circuit issued a one-sentence order last week allowing the law to take effect.

NetChoice lamented the appeals court’s “unwarranted, unreasoned stay of the reasoned preliminary injunction,” pushing the Supreme Court to reinstate the injunction to maintain the status quo while litigation continues.

“Compliance with the act would require large-scale changes to some of the internet’s biggest websites — not to mention many more similar, but smaller, communities,” NetChoice wrote. “Each covered website will need to adopt age-verification, parental-consent and monitoring systems to comply with the act — at great expense.”

The Supreme Court has faced similar scrutiny for its unexplained emergency orders.

Laws targeting minors’ social media access are becoming more common as fears over their effects emerge. As Mississippi’s case was litigated in the lower courts, the Supreme Court reviewed lawsuits from Texas and Florida, also filed by NetChoice.

Regulations from Texas and Florida restricted social media companies’ content moderation policies. The laws also required the companies to provide an individualized explanation to a user for the removal or alteration of their posts.

The justices avoided answering tough questions balancing online speech and the First Amendment, issuing a unanimous ruling calling for the lower courts to redo their work before the justices weighed in.

Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan said the Fifth Circuit, which similarly allowed Texas’ law to be enforced, had an “especially stark” need for additional guidance on how the First Amendment applied to content moderation provisions.

“​There has been enough litigation already to know that the Fifth Circuit, if it stayed the course, would get wrong at least one significant input into the facial analysis,” the Barack Obama appointee wrote in Moody v. NetChoice .

Free speech advocates said the ruling was consequential because it made clear there is no social media expectation in the First Amendment. Mississippi’s statute concerns age verification, however, differentiating it from Moody .

In June, the justices ruled on another Texas law requiring age verification checks for pornography. Splitting along ideological lines, the conservative supermajority ruled that age verification laws like Texas’ fall within states’ authority to shield children from sexually explicit content.

Kagan was joined in dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a fellow Barack Obama appointee, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee. The liberal justices said the law imposes a “chilling” effect on adults, who would be deterred from accessing websites because of the need to identify themselves.

“It is not, contra the majority, like having to flash ID to enter a club,” Kagan wrote.

“It is turning over information about yourself and your viewing habits — respecting speech many find repulsive — to a website operator, and then to … who knows? The operator might sell the information; the operator might be hacked or subpoenaed,” she added.

Follow @KelseyReichmann Follow @kelseyreichmann.bsky.social