Report from MediaPost
In Brief – Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who is weighing the emergency appeal of tech trade group NetChoice to block Mississippi from enforcing its law regulating how social media platforms serve teen users, has asked Mississippi’s Attorney General to respond to the petition before August 1. Mississippi’s statute prohibits minors from creating social media accounts without parental permission and requires social media platforms to mitigate minors’ exposure to “harmful material”, including content related to eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual abuse and online bullying. Many digital services are exempted, including employment-related sites and those that “primarily” offer news, sports, commerce, online video games, and content curated by the service provider. In June, District Judge Halil Ozerden issued an injunction blocking enforcement of the law for the second time, but a panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals likewise intervened for the second time, staying the injunction without comment. NetChoice petitioned Alito, who oversees emergency appeals for the circuit, to overturn the appeals court order and block enforcement of the law against its member companies, which includes Meta, Google and Snap.
Context – States keep passing laws regulating how social media sites serve teens. Most are getting blocked by federal district court judges, including in Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Utah, Arkansas, and California. When the Fifth Circuit first rejected Judge Ozerden’s ruling, they cited the Supreme Court’s Moody v. NetChoice decision, which seemed a bit odd as a majority of the High Court said that the operations of traditional social media platforms are clearly expressive activity protected by First Amendment. The most recent appeals panel ruling overturning Ozerden dispensed with explanation entirely. This is not the first time judges have used the somewhat circular Moody decision to avoid speaking clearly about the First Amendment and social media. The High Court’s recent ruling applying a less stringent review standard to age verification for online porn sites adds additional uncertainty that could be used by judges looking to back social media teen laws.