• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 30, 2023

An Arkansas law that requires most large platforms to verify users' ages and prevent minors from holding accounts without parental consent violates the First Amendment, the tech industry group NetChoice says in a lawsuit that seeks to block enforcement.

“Arkansas Senate Bill 396 is the latest attempt in a long line of government efforts to restrict new forms of expression based on concerns that they harm minors,” NetChoice writes in a complaint brought Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.

“Books, movies, television, rock music, video games, and the Internet have all been accused in the past of exposing youth to content that has deleterious effects,” the group says, adding that laws attempting to prevent minors from accessing that material “have reliably and repeatedly been struck down.”

The law, which was enacted earlier this year, will take effect September 1 unless blocked by a court.

Texas and Utah recently enacted similar laws, but the Arkansas statute is slated to go into effect first.

The Arkansas restrictions apply to most social-media platforms that are controlled by companies with more than $100 million in annual revenue, but a last-minute amendment appears to have exempted Google.

NetChoice notes in its lawsuit that the Supreme Court in 2011 struck down a California law that banned the sale of violent video games to minors, without parental consent. The court said in that case that minors have First Amendment rights to access non-obscene material.

The organization also says the law unconstitutionally singles out large social networks for special treatment.

Under the law, “minors may readily access websites that provide news, sports, entertainment, and online shopping, but not those that allow them to upload their favorite recipes or pictures of their latest travels or athletic exploits,” NetChoice writes.

“Moreover, the Act does not even restrict access to supposedly harmful content in any sensible way: It arguably applies to Facebook and Twitter, but not Mastodon, Discord, BeReel, Gab, Truth Social, Imgur, Brainly, DeviantArt, or Twitch. The Act thus appears to restrict access to political expression on Twitter and photography on Instagram but places no restrictions on the exact same expression on Truth Social or DeviantArt.”