• by Wendy Davis , 5 hours ago

Louisiana will ask an appeals court to allow enforcement of a law requiring social platforms to verify users' ages, and prohibiting platforms from allowing minors under 16 to create or maintain accounts without parental permission.

U.S. District Court Judge John deGravelles in the Middle District of Louisiana ruled last month that the Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation Act violates the First Amendment, and prohibited state officials from enforcing the law against 10 members of the tech organization NetChoice -- Meta Platforms, Nextdoor, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, X, YouTube, Tumblr, Discord and Amazon's Twitch.

"Minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection," deGravelles wrote in his 93-page ruling, quoting from a 1982 Supreme Court decision.

DeGravelles said in the ruling that Louisiana hadn't established that social media causes health harms to minors, but that even if the state had proven a causal connection the law would still be unconstitutional because it's both overinclusive and underinclusive.

"Here, the state seeks to regulate minors’ access to speech on social media platforms," he wrote.

"Overwhelmingly, such speech qualifies for First Amendment protection," he continued, adding: "Identical speech on unregulated websites remains easily accessible to minors."

The law also would have restricted platforms' ability to serve minors with some forms of personalized ads. 

Louisiana Attorney General  Liz Murrill this week initiated an appeal to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals -- considered the most conservative in the country. Her office hasn't yet filed substantive legal arguments with the appellate court.

DeGravelles' ruling came in a lawsuit brought by NetChoice, which has brought similar challenges to social media restrictions in at least eight states including Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Utah, Ohio, Texas and Tennessee.

District court judges have blocked most of those measures, but state attorneys general have appealed. So far, at least two appellate courts -- the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and 11th Circuit Court of Appeals -- have sided with state officials and allowed restrictions in Mississippi and Florida to take effect.