Children and young people should be able to enjoy the online world's opportunities while facing fewer risks from it, the European Commission said Monday as it published a prototype age-verification app and guidelines for protecting minors under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
NetChoice asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to continue to block a Mississippi age-verification law that a district court enjoined in June (see 2506180051) while the case is pending. Yet Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) noted in a July 2 court document that the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton affirms age-verification measures. Fitch has vowed to fight for the "commonsense" law (see 2506200009).
Christian state lawmakers unanimously supported an app store age-verification model bill last month, the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) said Monday.
Colorado shouldn’t use upcoming kids’ privacy regulations as a “back door” to require age verification, retailers warned the state’s law department last week. In addition to warning against requiring verification through possible rules about a company’s “willful disregard” of a user being a minor, industry groups cautioned that any regulation of system design features mustn’t violate the First Amendment.
App store age-verification laws like those in Texas will result in costly children’s privacy compliance for general audience-directed apps, ACT | The App Association said Friday.
A New Hampshire state court on Tuesday allowed a consumer protection case against social media platform TikTok to continue, ruling the state has jurisdiction to bring the suit, and that the First Amendment does not bar it from bringing the claims. One claim involving the Consumer Protection Act was dropped, however.
Several advocacy groups filed amicus briefs supporting NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) in a case challenging a 2023 law requiring social media companies to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for children younger than 18.
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.