• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

The tech industry organization NetChoice is urging a federal judge to block enforcement of a Colorado law requiring warnings for social media.

The law will force "private websites to act as mouthpieces for the state," NetChoice writes in papers filed late last week with U.S. District Court Judge William Martinez in Denver.

The group adds that the measure would require social platforms "to opine on the highly controversial purported effects of social media use on the health of minors, and to otherwise provide repeated and burdensome full-screen warning notifications to minors."

The statute, slated to take effect in January, gives social platforms two options for warning labels. One option would be providing minors under 18 with "information about their engagement in social media that helps the user understand the impact of social media on the developing brain and the mental and physical health of youth users.”

The second option is to display pop-up warnings every 30 minutes to minors who use the platforms for more than one hour a day, or between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

NetChoice -- which counts large tech companies including Google, Meta and Snap as members -- argues in its request for an injunction that requiring platforms to comply with either option would violate the 1st Amendment.

"The Act compels covered websites to speak about the controversial and developing body of research on the purported effects of some social media websites on some cohorts of minors," NetChoice writes, referring to the requirement to provide information about engagement with social media.

"Colorado wants to commandeer these websites to convey the state’s own message to users that covered websites are harmful and should be avoided or rarely used," the group adds. "This violates the First Amendment."

The group also says a requirement to send minors pop-ups every 30 minutes violates the First Amendment.

"The purpose and practical desired effect of these notifications is to deter users of the service," NetChoice writes.

"If the Wall Street Journal were required to repeatedly display a full screen notification to users when they read an article at a certain time of day or for a certain length of time, implying that the user should stop reading, few would question that as an improper governmental attempt to dissuade readers," the group argues. "The same would be true if video game or streaming companies were singled out to provide warnings to their users about the time spent playing a video game or watching cartoons. ...The First Amendment does not apply differently to social media websites."

Colorado officials are expected to respond to the group's argument by September 19.