• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones has appealed an order blocking enforcement of a law requiring social platforms to verify users' ages and prohibit minors under 16 from accessing social media for more than one hour a day without parental consent.

Jones  initiated the appeal on Tuesday, but hasn't yet made substantive arguments to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear the case.

Late last week, U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria ruled that the law (SB 854) likely violates the First Amendment. She issued an injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing the statute against any members of the tech group NetChoice, which represents large social media companies including Meta Platforms, YouTube, Reddit, and Dreamwidth.

"Virginia does not have the legal authority to block minors’ access to constitutionally protected speech until their parents give their consent by overriding a government-imposed default limit," Giles wrote in a 27-page opinion.

Giles also said in the ruling that the age verification mandate would impede adults' and minors' ability to access lawful speech.

NetChoice sued over the law last November, arguing it would "cause an irreparable loss of First Amendment freedoms on a massive scale."

The group argued that the statute would prevent minors in the state from "vital channels of communication, education, and self-expression that their peers in other states may still access," while also imposing "burdensome age verification on millions of adults."

Virginia countered that the law represented a "reasonable and common-sense" approach to combating "excessive" social media use.

Twenty-nine state attorneys general also backed the law, claiming it was "narrowly tailored to address Virginia’s compelling interest in protecting kids."

The attorneys general contended that teens under 16 have "more limited" First Amendment rights than older teens, and that states "have an even greater interest in protecting them because they are more vulnerable to the harms posed by platforms."