• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

The tech industry group NetChoice on Friday appealed a judge's ruling that allowed Nebraska to enforce a portion of a new state law requiring social platforms to give parents tools to monitor minors' messages with other users.

The organization has not yet filed substantive arguments with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In addition to requiring platforms to give parents monitoring tools, the Parental Rights in Social Media Act (LB 383) also prohibits social platforms from allowing anyone under 18 to create accounts without parental permission.

U.S. District Court Judge John Gerrard blocked those parental-consent provisions last month on First Amendment grounds, but refused to enjoin the provisions requiring monitoring tools.

State Attorney General Michael Hilgers said earlier this month that Nebraska would appeal that portion of the order. On Thursday, Hilgers officially initiated that appeal to the 8th Circuit.

The legal battle over the law dates to May, when NetChoice -- which counts large platforms including Meta, TikTok, Snap and YouTube as members -- sought an injunction blocking enforcement

"The state cannot begin to show that its age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance provisions are necessary to advance any legitimate interest it may assert," NetChoice argued in its bid to block the law.

The organization noted that the Supreme Court in 2011 struck down a California law that banned the sale of violent video games to minors, without parental consent.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who authored the opinion in that case, wrote that the government doesn't have a “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed. He added that basic free speech principles “do not vary when a new and different medium for communication appears.”

NetChoice added that requiring platforms to give parents tools to monitor minors' activity will infringe teens' First Amendment rights.

"Minors are far more likely to self-censor if they know that their parents are monitoring every post and private message they send and receive," NetChoice writes.

Hilgers opposed NetChoice's petition, arguing that the group isn't in a position to assert the First Amendment rights of social media users.

Hilgers also claimed that the law regulates "commercial transactions," not speech, and that the provision requiring platforms to give parents tools to monitor children's messages enables parents to supervise their children.

"Surely parents have a right to know who their child contracts with and to supervise their conduct online."

Gerrard said in a ruling issued last month that the age verification and parental consent provisions have "a direct impact on several protected First Amendment activities."

He also specifically noted that the law appeared driven by an effort "to prevent minors from accessing speech about certain subject matter."

"The Attorney General himself testified, in committee, about the need to restrict the 'inappropriate material' available to minors online; e.g., content related to obscenity, drug use, body dysmorphia, and suicide," Gerrard wrote. "Much of that 'inappropriate material' is presumptively protected by the First Amendment."

At the same time, he rejected NetChoice's request to block enforcement of the provision requiring monitoring tools.

"At this early stage, these provisions appear to be narrowly tailored to alleviate the identified harms of unmonitored social media activity by minors, and do not offend the Constitution," Gerrard wrote.

The 8th Circuit has directed Nebraska and NetChoice to file written arguments by September 11.