• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

The tech-industry group NetChoice is urging a federal appellate court to preserve blocks on Arkansas laws that impose restrictions on social platforms' ability to serve content to users.

One of the statutes (referred to in court papers as "Act 901") would prohibit social-media platforms from using algorithms or design features that could "cause" a user to commit suicide, buy drugs, develop an eating disorder, or become addicted to social media.

A second law ("Act 900") would require social-media services to avoid sending notifications to minors under the age of 16 between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. by default, unless a parent allowed such notifications.

Act 900 also would have mandated the most privacy protective default settings for social media users under age 16.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks in Fayetteville, Arkansas blocked enforcement of both the measures on First Amendment grounds.

In December 2025, Brooks said that Act 901's provisions "clearly impose content-based restrictions on speech," and that the statute was both too broad and too narrow.

For instance, Brooks wrote, the law "does not generally bar minors’ access to speech promoting suicide or tending to cause a prohibited result," but instead "limits only their access to forums in which to discuss -- rather than merely view -- this speech."

This April, Brooks also ruled that Act 900's restrictions -- including the mandatory block on nighttime notifications -- were unconstitutional.

"If parents wanted to prevent their children’s sleep from being disrupted by late-night notifications, they have a readily available, free, no-tech solution already at their disposal: taking devices away at night," he wrote.

Arkansas appealed both rulings to the Eighth Circuit. Among other arguments, the state says the rulings are too broad, contending that some applications of the statute could be constitutional in certain circumstances.

NetChoice counters in appellate papers made available last week that the restrictions in both laws would sweepingly restrict lawful speech.

"Each challenged provision principally regulates speech protected by the First Amendment," NetChoice argues.

"Arkansas has no constitutionally permissible interest in preventing 'addiction' to protected speech," NetChoice writes. "To conclude otherwise would allow the state to restrict any medium it deems too absorbing, from novels to video games to television series to religious practice."

The group adds that the laws are "wildly underinclusive, as they leave identical content untouched when conveyed through books, movies, television, or online services that focus on provider-generated speech."

Two years before passing Acts 900 and 901, Arkansas lawmakers passed a law that would have required social platforms to verify users' ages and prohibited minors under 18 from having accounts without parental permission.

Brooks blocked enforcement of that law in 2023.

Arkansas has also appealed that 2023 ruling to the Eighth Circuit.

The circuit court has consolidated the cases and plans to hear arguments on all three cases at the same time, but has not yet set a hearing date.