Supreme Court greenlights social media age checks for Mississippi minors 

WASHINGTON (CN) — Mississippi can enforce its age verification law for social media users, the Supreme Court said Thursday, rejecting an appeal from the internet lobbying giant NetChoice.

The justices did not explain their decision, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh pinned the onus on the internet companies for not meeting the procedural bar for emergency relief.

“In short, under this court’s case law as it currently stands, the Mississippi law is likely unconstitutional,” the Donald Trump appointee wrote in a concurring statement. “Nonetheless, because NetChoice has not sufficiently demonstrated that the balance of harms and equities favors it at this time, I concur in the court’s denial of the application for interim relief.”

Kavanaugh said that restrictions on minors’ social media usage likely violated the First Amendment, citing recent rulings from the Supreme Court on similar laws in Texas and Florida.

There were no public dissents.

NetChoice asked the justices for emergency intervention, warning that Mississippi citizens would lose access to fully protected speech across social media websites if House Bill 1126 takes effect.

“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 take effect in July 2024, but a lower court found the law was likely unconstitutional and blocked the state from enforcing it. 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.”

Mississippi said NetChoice’s claims hadn’t materialized in the several months that the law has been in effect, urging the high court to keep age checks on the books. The state argued that the law only required what any responsible platform would already do, noting that social media companies must take “commercially reasonable” actions to verify a user’s age.

“NetChoice represents covered platforms that already verify age without requiring documentation or forgoing anonymity,” Mississippi wrote. “How does video selfie age verification work on Instagram? How video selfie age verification works on Facebook Dating.”

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 in 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 in Moody v. NetChoice calling for the lower courts to redo their work before the justices weighed in.

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.

Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice litigation center, said the ruling was an unfortunate procedural delay, but expressed confidence that social media companies would prevail as litigation continues.

“Although we’re disappointed with the court’s decision, Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed in defending the First Amendment — not just in this case but across all NetChoice’s ID-for-speech lawsuits,” Taske said in a statement.

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