• by Wendy Davis , October 4, 2024

The tech industry organization NetChoice is suing to block a new Tennessee law that prohibits Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snap and other social media companies from allowing minors under 18 to create accounts, without parental consent.

The "Protecting Children from Social Media Act,” which will take effect in January unless blocked, also requires social media platforms to verify all users ages.

The statute violates “bedrock principles of constitutional law and precedent from across the nation,” NetChoice says in a lawsuit brought Thursday in Nashville federal court.

NetChoice argues that the law violates teens' First Amendment rights by restricting their ability to access media, and also violates the First Amendment rights of all social media users by effectively requiring them to identify themselves before accessing content.

“All individuals, minors and adults alike, must comply with this age-verification requirement, which would force them to hand over personal information or identification that many are unwilling or unable to provide as a precondition to accessing and engaging in protected speech,” the group writes. “Such requirements chill speech, in violation of the First Amendment.”

The organization adds that laws requiring minors to obtain parental permission to use social media violate teens' First Amendment rights to access content. The group notes that the Supreme Court voted 7-2 in 2011 to strike 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.”

Tennessee isn't the only state to pass laws that either restrict teens' use of social media, or regulate companies' ability to serve content to teens. New York, Maryland, Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, Utah, Texas and California are among other states that have passed statutes that either restrict teens' use of social media, or regulate companies' ability to serve content to teens. Legislation regarding social media has also been introduced in other states, including New Jersey and South Dakota.

So far, NetChoice and other groups have obtained injunctions blocking all or parts of those laws in Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, Utah, Texas and California.