• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, July 11, 2025

A Texas law that would restrict social platforms' ability to serve content and ads to minors is likely to "bulldoze online speech," the tech-funded policy group Chamber of Progress told a federal appellate court Thursday.

The organization is one of many outside groups urging the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to preserve an injunction blocking enforcement of the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act (HB 18). Other groups opposing the law include the American Civil Liberties Union, Wikipedia and the Student Press Law Center.

The Texas measure requires social platforms to ask users their ages, and then deploy filtering technology to block "harmful" content to minors. The statute defines harmful content as including material that “promotes,” “glorifies,” or “facilitates” eating disorders, self-harm, substance abuse, and “grooming ... or other sexual exploitation or abuse.”

HB 18 also prohibits targeted advertising to minors, without parental consent. Additionally, the measure separately requires social platforms to make “commercially reasonable” efforts to block ads to minors that “facilitate, promote, or offer a product, service, or activity” that's unlawful for minors in Texas.

The law drew two separate legal challenges last year -- one by the tech industry groups NetChoice and Computer & Communications Industry Association, and a second by a coalition including the group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas and the Austin-based agency Ampersand Group.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman in Austin blocked enforcement in response to those challenges, ruling that the law likely violates the First Amendment.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently asked the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the block. He argued in papers filed earlier this year that the public interest "favors child safety" over what he described as "speculative First Amendment concerns.”

The Chamber of Progress is urging the 5th Circuit to reject Paxton's appeal, arguing that allowing enforcement could transform platforms into "overzealous censors" that suppress discussions about social issues.

"Standards against 'grooming' could prevent discussion of dating strategies, romantic gift-giving, or how men can attract women," the group writes in its friend-of-the-court brief.

"Standards against 'eating disorders' could erase discussions about popular diets, workouts, and general wellness trends that some may view as unhealthy -- such as Mediterranean, Paleo, and carnivore diets, intermittent fasting, tips on exercises to build muscle, and products like protein powder, creatine, and colostrum -- preventing Texans from freely talking about their approaches to health and fitness," the organization adds.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Wikipedia, Student Press Law Center and others argue in a separate appeal that the law "restricts much more than just 'harmful' content online."

"Content that 'facilitates' or 'promotes' self-harm or substance abuse could reach anything that might cause a young person deep anguish, from reporting about school shootings, war, and teen suicide, to minors’ own personal updates about deaths in the family, rejection from a college, or a breakup," those groups write.

They add that attempting to regulate such speech would violate the First Amendment.