{"id":953,"date":"2025-08-15T01:17:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T21:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/supreme-court-opens-door-to-social-media-age-gating-in-us\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T01:17:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T21:17:19","slug":"supreme-court-opens-door-to-social-media-age-gating-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/supreme-court-opens-door-to-social-media-age-gating-in-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court opens door to social media age-gating in US"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Supreme Court will let Mississippi\u2019s social media age verification law take effect while the case is being argued in court. In an unsigned ruling on Thursday<\/a>, the court declined to block the law after an emergency petition from trade association NetChoice. The order offers no explanation, but in a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the law was \u201clikely unconstitutional\u201d \u2014 but that NetChoice hadn\u2019t\u201csufficiently demonstrated\u201d a risk of harm.<\/p>\n

The law, HB 1126<\/a>, requires social media platforms to verify the age of the person creating the account, while blocking users under 18 unless they have permission from a parent. It also states that social media sites must protect underage users from \u201charmful material\u201d \u2014\u00a0such as sexual content and material related to self-harm\u00a0 \u2014 as well as restrict data collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NetChoice, which is backed by tech giants like Meta, Google, Amazon, Reddit, and Discord, argues that age verification laws for general-purpose social media violate the First Amendment. Though the trade association won an injunction to block the law<\/a> last year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated it in April<\/a>, allowing the law to go into effect. As Justice Kavanaugh noted, however, numerous district courts have blocked similar laws in other states.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be clear, NetChoice has, in my view, demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits \u2014 namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely violate its members\u2019 First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this setback, NetChoice is still confident that it will prevail. \u201cAlthough we\u2019re disappointed with the Court\u2019s decision, Justice Kavanaugh\u2019s concurrence makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed in defending the First Amendment \u2014 not just in this case but across all NetChoice\u2019s ID-for-Speech lawsuits,\u201d Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said in a statement. \u201cThis is merely an unfortunate procedural delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision comes as lawmakers across the US \u2014 and around the world \u2014 push age verification mandates designed to protect children from harmful content on the internet. In June, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas law<\/a> that requires users to verify their ages before accessing porn sites, paving the way for similar laws to take effect \u2014 but specifically for platforms focused on adult content. Meanwhile, the UK has begun to enforce a broader online age-gating requirement<\/a> that asks users to verify their age with a government ID, a face scan, or by entering credit card information on certain websites.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said in a statement that age verification laws have \u201csignificant impacts on privacy and speech rights of both adult and teen users.\u201d Huddleston notes that today\u2019s decision doesn\u2019t mean the court \u201cwill automatically uphold this law as constitutional should it reach it through the full appeals process.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court will let Mississippi\u2019s social media age verification law take effect while the case is being argued in […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}