NetChoice: Ark. AG Wrong About Social Media Safety Act
The Arkansas attorney general’s plea for a federal court to reverse or amend its ruling enjoining a social media safety act must “be rejected out of hand,” NetChoice said in a court brief Monday. The U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas previously sided with the tech association, ruling the safety act unconstitutional for violating the First and 14th Amendments (see 2504010044).
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“The state raises a novel severability argument, re-hashes a meritless third-party standing argument, and makes a half-hearted plea to vacate the judgment based on statutory amendments that had not been enacted when the judgment was issued, will not take effect for two more months, and do not even repeal many of the statutory provisions that this Court held unconstitutional,” said NetChoice. “Because the state fails to identify anything remotely approaching ‘a manifest error of law or fact,’” the motion “should be denied.”
NetChoice originally filed the lawsuit because the Act required the use of age-verification for access to social media platforms, which the association said chilled speech and invaded people’s privacy. The district court found the law wasn't narrowly tailored to the state’s interests and therefore unconstitutional. The court permanently enjoined the AG from enforcing it.
AG Tim Griffin (R) asked the district court to alter its ruling, arguing the court lacks authority to abolish a law, only block enforcement of it (see 2504290036). He also filed an appeal of the ruling in case 23-05105 to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2504300051).