A federal court halted enforcement of a Florida social media law that would prohibit kids 13 and younger from creating social media accounts, requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create them and uses age-verification to implement these restrictions. The ruling by the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida on Tuesday granted a request for a preliminary injunction brought by NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), who say HB-3 violates the First Amendment and poses privacy risks.
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).
Louisiana’s Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday passed HB-570, an app store age-verification bill that has pitted Apple and Google against Meta and X (see 2505280065).
The Vermont legislature passed an age-appropriate design code (AADC) bill Thursday, becoming the second state this week to approve such a measure. Vermont senators voted unanimously by voice to concur with House changes and repass S-69, which would require companies to set maximum privacy settings by default for children. Later that day, the House finally passed the bill by concurring with a minor technical amendment related to the wording of the effective date.
NetChoice filed a brief on Tuesday asking the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to side with a district court’s previous ruling and block the Utah attorney general from enforcing a law regulating social media and minors on First Amendment and privacy grounds.
Mississippi’s age-verification law violates the First Amendment in part because it requires the collection of personally identifying information and in turn “chills speech,” NetChoice argued Friday in a reply brief seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (see 2505200017).
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.
The Texas House provided overwhelming support for a bill requiring app stores to verify users' ages and seek parental consent. Members supported SB-2420 in a 132-10 vote Thursday and then passed the bill on a final reading Friday.
Florida and 18 other state enforcers, plus the Arizona state legislature, supported Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in asking a federal appeals court to remove a preliminary injunction on his state's age-verification law.
The U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi granted NetChoice’s unopposed motion Friday and lifted the stay of proceedings in a case over a Mississippi age-verification law for social media.