Miss. Opposes Injunction and Restraining Order on Age-Verification Law
The Mississippi attorney general fired back Monday against NetChoice, opposing motions for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against a law that requires social media platforms to verify users' ages, obtain parental consent for minors to have accounts, and limit the content minors are exposed to on the platforms.
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NetChoice hasn't tried to "carry its 'heavy burden' 'to develop a factual record' addressing 'every hypothetical application' of each provision it challenges," but "has instead recycled the arguments it already made and relied on facts that were before this Court last year," said AG Lynn Fitch (R) in the court document. "NetChoice’s defiance of the Fifth Circuit’s decision requires this Court to reject facial relief. Any other disposition would violate the Fifth Circuit’s mandate. ...
"But NetChoice’s failure goes deeper: Because NetChoice has not made a factual presentation showing how the Act applies to -- and burdens -- even one platform, the Court cannot award as-applied relief either," the complaint in case 24-00170 continued. "NetChoice has not established what any covered platform must do under any challenged provision or explained (for any platform) what would constitute 'commercially reasonable' actions to verify age, obtain parental consent, or adopt a harm-mitigation strategy. So NetChoice has not shown that the Act is unlawful in even one application."
On April 17, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction against the law, citing the recent ruling in Moody v. NetChoice LLC that proved the U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi should have gone through a more detailed factual analysis before deciding that NetChoice was likely to succeed on its merits (see 2504180013). The case began when NetChoice sued Fitch over HB-1126, alleging that it violates the First Amendment and that its age-verification requirement poses privacy problems (see 2501310041). Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden lifted the stay of proceedings in the case earlier this month (see 2505050052), after NetChoice filed its amended complaint and motioned for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order (see 2505020058).