• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

The Supreme Court on Thursday denied NetChoice's emergency request to halt a Mississippi law that requires social platforms to verify all users' ages, and prohibits minors from creating social media accounts without parental permission.

The Supreme Court didn't give a reason for its move, which allows Mississippi to enforce the law while the tech industry organization's challenge to the statute proceeds in the lower courts.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said in a written concurrence that Mississippi's law is "likely unconstitutional," but that NetChoice "has not sufficiently demonstrated that the balance of harms and equities" warrants an emergency order.

In addition to requiring parental consent for social media, the Mississippi law also requires social platforms to prevent or mitigate” minors' exposure to “harmful material” -- defined as including material that promotes or facilitates eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual abuse and online bullying.

In June, U.S. District Court Judge Halil Ozerden in the Southern District of Mississippi issued an injunction prohibiting Mississippi from enforcing the law against eight NetChoice members -- Dreamwidth, Meta Platforms, Nextdoor, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, X and YouTube.

"As applied to NetChoice’s covered members, the Act likely burdens substantially more speech than is necessary for the state to safeguard the physical and psychological wellbeing of minors online," Ozerden wrote.

He added that the law would restrict minors from accessing content "regardless of whether the content concerns or negatively affects minors’ physical and psychological wellbeing."

Mississippi appealed that ruling to the 5th Circuit, which lifted the injunction last month.

NetChoice then asked the Supreme Court to reinstate Ozerden's injunction on an emergency basis, arguing that allowing enforcement "would transform how Mississippi residents access and experience fully protected online speech -- and how social media websites curate, disseminate, and display this speech."

On Wednesday, NetChoice lawyer Paul Taske called the Supreme Court's decision "an unfortunate procedural delay."

“Although we’re disappointed with the Court’s decision, Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed in defending the First Amendment," he stated.

Kavanaugh said in his concurrence that he believes NetChoice "demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits -- namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely violate its members’ First Amendment rights under this Court’s precedents."

"Given those precedents, it is no surprise that the District Court in this case enjoined enforcement of the Mississippi law and that seven other Federal District Courts have likewise enjoined enforcement of similar state laws," Kavanaugh added, referencing orders currently blocking Ohio, Texas, Utah, California, Arkansas, Florida and Georgia from enforcing their states' social media restrictions.

Ozerden noted in his injunction that the Supreme Court previously struck down a California law that would have banned the sale of violent video games to minors, without parental consent.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2011 decision that the restrictions on video game sales violated the First Amendment.

"California’s effort to regulate violent video games is the latest episode in a long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors," he wrote. "Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply."

He added that states don't have a “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

Three justices currently on the court -- John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- joined Scalia's opinion in that matter.

Alito, also on the court in 2011, agreed with the result in that case, but disagreed with the court's analysis. He said in a written concurrence that law's definition of "violent video games" was too vague to be constitutional.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented in that case.