The problem with banning children from social media
Some countries have enacted laws banning social media for children, but critics warn age verification could unintentionally violate privacy rights and free speech.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said on July 6 that Texas can enforce age verification and parental consent requirements for most apps, even as those rules are being challenged as free speech violations.
A federal judge blocked the state’s law from taking effect before it took effect in January.
But in June, the Court of Appeals allowed the rule to take effect while the case was pending.
The Supreme Court left the order in place, rejecting requests to intervene by an internet technology trade association, a student organization, and two teenagers who use the app for arts and journalism.
A bipartisan group of 27 state attorneys general supported Texas’ position.
Lawyers for the students argued that judges should get involved because courts across the country have reached different conclusions about whether laws like Texas’s are constitutional.
They said the appellate court in the case did not apply an appropriate level of scrutiny to First Amendment challenges and applied a standard that would “effectively endow the entire Internet with the kind of speech that the government can more easily regulate.”
“No state has ever required citizens to prove their age before reading a newspaper, entering a bookstore, or even accessing the Internet,” the Computer and Communications Industry Association said in its appeal.
Texas argued that “the modern digital world is different from the physical world,” and said the state has a significant stake in “protecting children’s data, safety, and privacy in the digital world.”
“SB 2420 protects children from dangerous modern products, just as states have long protected minors from alcohol, tobacco, and other harmful products,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told the Supreme Court.
The law requires app stores to determine whether a user is under 18 years of age. If you are under 18 years of age, you must have parental consent to download the app or any paid content within the app.
Last year, the Supreme Court upheld another Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify that users are 18 or older before being granted access.
