Report from Courthouse News
In Brief – The US Supreme Court has rejected the emergency appeals filed by a youth advocacy organization and tech company trade group asking the justices to block Texas’s App Store Accountability Act as litigation challenging its constitutionality proceeds. The law requires app developers to set age limits for their apps, while app stores verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for downloads by minors. Opponents argue that the law infringes on teenagers’ First Amendment rights and threatens the privacy of all internet users. The law has been tied up in court since its enactment. A federal judge blocked enforcement last December on First Amendment grounds, but an appeals panel of the US 5th Circuit court recently paused that ruling, and the plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the injunction in June.
Context – Last summer, the Supreme Court ruled that states could require porn websites to use age verification tools to confirm that users are adults, with six justices saying that ID checks were a long-established tool to restrict access to pornography that warranted First Amendment “intermediate scrutiny”. Meanwhile, states have been passing laws regulating how social media platforms serve teens. Initially, most were blocked by federal judges applying “strict” First Amendment reviews because general online activity is far different from accessing pornography. However, soon after the High Court’s decision on porn age checks, a federal appeals court panel in 5th Circuit allowed Mississippi’s teen-focused social media law to stand during litigation, and the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal. Justice Kavanaugh issued a concurring opinion summarizing why all the similar social media laws had been blocked and why he suspected Mississippi’s would be as well. In the meantime, appeals panels of the 11th, 9th, and 6th circuits have since joined the 5th. The issue is going to reach a Supreme Court that has been squirrely on internet cases, so who knows how this all plays out. Meanwhile, absent a First Amendment barrier, many countries are imposing blanket age limits on social media.