District Court Permanently Enjoins Ark. Social Media Safety Act
The U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas ruled Monday in favor of tech trade association NetChoice, permanently enjoining an Arkansas social media safety act as unconstitutional. The court said the age-verification law violated the First and 14th Amendments.
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“Requiring adult users to produce state-approved documentation to prove their age and/or submit to biometric age-verification testing imposes significant burdens on adult access to constitutionally protected speech and ‘discourage[s] users from accessing [the regulated] sites,’” said Judge Timothy Brooks. Additionally, “the Act does not bar data collection from identified minors and instead seems to provide platforms with more accurate age data to feed to algorithms and advertisers because of the age-verification requirement.”
Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) respects “the court’s decision, and we are evaluating our options," he said in an emailed statement.
The 2023 Arkansas law requires users of social media platforms to verify their age, as they must be 18 or older in order to access platforms without parental consent. NetChoice sued in June 2023, alleging violations of the First Amendment and Commerce Clause. The tech group also argued the Child Online Privacy Protection Act preempted the state law.
“The court confirms what we have been arguing from the start: laws restricting access to protected speech violate the First Amendment,” said Chris Marchese, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center. “This ruling protects Americans from having to hand over their IDs or biometric data just to access constitutionally protected speech online,” Marchese noted. “It reaffirms that parents -- not politicians or bureaucrats -- should decide what’s appropriate for their children.”
Also celebrating the win was Aaron Mackey, free speech and transparency litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "EFF is pleased that the federal court upheld the First Amendment rights of all internet users -- adults and minors -- in striking down Arkansas' misguided social media law,” he said in an emailed statement.
“The court recognized that the law burdened minors' ability to speak online and to hear from others, and that its burdensome age-verification requirements harmed all users' rights to anonymity and jeopardized their privacy and security," Mackey added. "Lawmakers in Arkansas and elsewhere need to stop passing laws that violate young people's First Amendment rights, and should instead be passing laws to protect everyone's online privacy."