• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

A Florida-led state coalition is backing Louisiana's request to lift a block on 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.

Those restrictions are "a constitutionally valid response to the harm that platforms are causing children," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier argues in a friend-of-the-court brief joined by 29 other states and the District of Columbia.

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

The ruling came in a lawsuit by the tech group NetChoice, which argued the law is unconstitutional. The organization 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, at least temporarily.

DeGravelles said in his ruling that Louisiana officials failed to establish that social media causes health harms to minors. He added that even if the state had proven a causal connection the law would still violate the First Amendment for several reasons -- including that law was both overinclusive and underinclusive.

"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 that "identical speech" on websites other than social platforms "remains easily accessible to minors."

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and the state Department of Justice recently urged the 5th Circuit to reverse that ruling, arguing that the restrictions are comparable to laws regulating minors' consumption of alcohol or cigarettes.

Florida and the other states add that the law is a "reasonable" response to social platforms' "predatory business practices" -- such as "design features that manipulate kids into compulsively using social media."

"The Act is a quintessential consumer-protection law: It protects Louisiana’s most vulnerable citizens from predatory business practices," the states argue in their friend-of-the-court brief, filed Wednesday.

They add that the law only regulates "commercial activity" -- meaning the ability to offer accounts to minors.

"If two social-media platforms were identical in all respects except that one required users to become account holders and the other did not, the Act would impose no restrictions on the latter even though both platforms provide the same speech to children," the attorneys general argue.

They also contend that minors under 16 have "more limited" First Amendment rights than older children.

NetChoice is expected to file a response with the 5th Circuit by May 26.