The tech industry group NetChoice has sued to strike down a Nebraska law that requires social platforms to verify users’ ages, prohibit minors under 18 from creating accounts
without parental permission, and requires platforms to give parents tools to monitor minors’ messages with other users.
“Like the laws that have preceded it, the Social Media
Act violates the First Amendment,” NetChoice alleges in a complaint filed Thursday in
U.S. District Court in Nebraska.
“The state cannot begin to show that its age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance provisions are necessary to advance any
legitimate interest it may assert,” NetChoice writes. The organization, which counts Meta Platforms, Google, Snap and other large tech companies as members, is seeking a judicial declaration that the
law is unconstitutional, and an injunction prohibiting enforcement.
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NetChoice argues in its petition that the law violates minors’ right to access speech as well as web
companies’ right to disseminate content.
“Minors use online services to read the news, connect with friends, explore new interests, follow their favorite sports teams, and
research their dream colleges,” NetChoice writes. “Some use online services to hone a new skill or showcase their creative talents, including photography, writing, or other forms of expression. Others
use them to raise awareness about social causes and participate in public discussions on salient topics of the day.”
The group adds that requiring platforms to give parents
tools to monitor minors’ activity will infringe teens’ First Amendment rights.
“Minors are far more likely to self-censor if they know that their parents are monitoring every
post and private message they send and receive,” NetChoice writes.
The organization notes in its petition that the Supreme Court in 2011 struck down a California law that
banned the sale of violent video games to minors, without parental consent.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who authored the opinion in that case, wrote that the government doesn’t
have a “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed. He added that basic free speech principles “do not vary when a new and different medium for
communication appears.”
Nebraska is just one of numerous states to recently pass laws restricting social platforms.
NetChoice has sued over those
laws in at least 11 other states including Arkansas, California, Maryland, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Utah, Ohio, Texas and Tennessee.
Most district court judges
have blocked all or part of those measures, but state attorneys general have appealed. So far, the 5th Circuit and 11th Circuit have sided with state officials and allowed laws in Mississippi and Florida to take effect, while the 9th Circuit said in a mixed ruling that portions of a California law could go into
effect.
Unless blocked, the Nebraska law will take effect July 1.
