• by Wendy Davis , July 8, 2024

Mississippi is seeking to scuttle an injunction prohibiting enforcement of a law that would require digital platforms to verify all users' ages, and prohibit minors from creating social media accounts, without parental permission.

U.S. District Court Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden in the Southern District of Mississippi blocked the statute last week, ruling that it likely violates the First Amendment.

State Attorney General Lynn Fitch is now appealing that decision to the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Fitch also is asking Ozerden to stay his order while the appeal is underway.

“The Act addresses specific harms to minors that flow from a very particular set of targeted, interactive acts perpetrated online,” and “should be permitted to take effect pending appeal,” Fitch says in papers filed Wednesday with Ozerden.

She adds that the restrictions promote a “substantial” government interest in protecting minors.

In addition to the age verification provisions and parental consent requirements, the Mississippi law also would require social platforms to prevent or mitigate minors' exposure to “harmful material” -- defined as content that promotes or facilitates eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual abuse and online bullying, among other material.

If allowed to take effect, the measure would apply to websites that allow users to create profiles and socially interact, with exemptions for employment-related sites and sites that “primarily” offer news, sports, commerce, online video games and content curated by the service provider.

The tech industry group NetChoice sued over the measure, arguing it infringes the First Amendment in several ways. Among other reasons, the group said the provisions regarding potentially harmful content amount to governmental censorship.

The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation sided with NetChoice, arguing in a friend-of-the-court brief that the age verification provisions infringe all internet users' free-speech rights and also compromise people's privacy.

Online age restrictions “frustrate everyone’s ability to use one of the most expressive mediums of our time -- the vast democratic forums of the internet that we all use to create art, share photos with loved ones, organize for political change, and speak,” the group wrote in papers filed last month with Ozerden.

The judge said in a 40-page ruling issued July 1 that the law's restrictions weren't a good fit for its stated goals. He noted in his ruling that even though there have been reports of suspected child sexual exploitation on Amazon and Roblox, both services are exempt from the law's restrictions.

Ozerden also said the statute's definition of “digital service provider” -- including the carve-out for services that “primarily” offered news, sports or certain other material -- likely was too vague to be constitutional.

“It is unclear what test one uses to determine how a digital service 'primarily' functions,” he wrote.

He added that the provision requiring all users to verify their ages “burdens adults' First Amendment rights.”