Bluesky will verify ages to comply with the U.K. Online Safety Act, the social media platform said on its blog Thursday. The platform said it will deny access to adult content and disable direct messaging for users younger than 18 and those who don’t want to verify their age.
It's not just app stores that must pay attention to a crop of new age-verification laws in Utah, Texas and Louisiana, Orrick attorneys blogged Thursday: It's app developers, too.
Massachusetts should follow New York state in passing an age-verification bill to ban social media platforms from using algorithms to deliver content to users younger than 18, said Massachusetts Rep. William MacGregor (D) at a livestreamed Thursday hearing of the Joint Committee on Advanced IT, the Internet and Cybersecurity.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding Texas’ porn site age-verification law bodes well for dozens of similar state laws, but it might not apply meaningfully to app store age-verification laws, policy experts said during a livestream Tuesday.
Advocacy groups that disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld a Texas age-verification law for accessing adult sites (see 2506270041) argued the decision is significant because it could embolden other states to expand the definition of off-limits material, further challenging the First Amendment and ultimately letting politicians make content decisions. Another worry is the harm the decision could bring to the LGBTQ community, some groups said.
Responding to a suit against New York over a state law requiring that retailers disclose when they are using algorithmic pricing, privacy lawyer Heidi Saas argued that the First Amendment does not protect surveillance pricing.
Utah should consider amending its comprehensive privacy law, given the underwhelming number of consumer privacy complaints filed in the statute’s first 18 months, said Attorney General Derek Brown (R) and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection in a report obtained Wednesday by Privacy Daily. “Complaints have not been as forthcoming as anticipated,” it said, but “violations are likely occurring.”
The Free Speech Coalition said it’s weighing legal options as age-verification laws took effect Tuesday in multiple states.
NetChoice filed an additional lawsuit against Arkansas late Friday as it attempted to block a pair of measures that would amend the state’s 2023 Social Media Safety Act, which a court ruled unconstitutional in late March following a NetChoice challenge (see 2504010044).
In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring age verification for access to porn sites (see 2506270015 and 2501130012). The majority in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton sided with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in support of HB-1181, which the adult industry trade association Free Speech Coalition said violates the First Amendment (see 2409170012).