• by Wendy Davis , 6 hours ago

The tech industry group NetChoice is asking a federal judge to block enforcement of a new California law requiring cigarette-style warnings for social media.

The measure, Assembly Bill 56, requires Facebook, Instagram and others to post a label stating, "The Surgeon General has warned that while social media may have benefits for some young users, social media is associated with significant mental health harms and has not been proven safe for young users."

The law specifies that the warning, which must appear inside a black box, must be shown to a user unless the sites have "reasonably determined" that the user is at least 18 years old.

The measure also provides that an initial warning must be displayed "clearly and continuously" for at least 10 seconds, unless users remove the warning by clicking on an "X" icon.

Additionally, the warning must re-appear after "three hours of cumulative active use" and again "at least once per hour of cumulative active use." The statute says those subsequent warnings must take up at least 75% of the screen and appear for at least 30 seconds. Unlike the first warning, subsequent ones can't give users "the ability to bypass" or click out of them, the law states.

NetChoice argues in a complaint filed last week in federal court in the Central District of California that the law violates the First Amendment in several ways -- including by compelling platforms to convey the government's message, and placing obstacles in front of users who are attempting to access speech.

"California has myriad ways to speak to and persuade its residents," NetChoice, which counts Meta, Google, TikTok and other platforms as members, writes.

"But the Act instead compels regulated services to speak the State’s message... And it compels users to listen," NetChoice says. "Unlike a static warning on a product label, these warnings repeatedly interrupt users and block access to protected speech."

The organization adds that the law is both too narrow and too broad to accomplish a legitimate governmental purpose.

"The Act is underinclusive in that it does not apply to a 17-year-old staying up until 3:00 a.m. streaming shows on Hulu, but it requires warnings when that student is watching lessons for school on YouTube," NetChoice writes.

"The Act is also overinclusive because it requires warning notifications for large swaths of valuable, protected, and entirely innocuous speech, without purporting to identify websites that are harmful," the group adds. " For example, it would presumptively require warning notifications to a retiree checking neighborhood updates on Nextdoor, a teacher sharing lesson plans on Pinterest, and a college student watching a cooking tutorial on YouTube."

Other states including Colorado, Minnesota and New York have passed laws similar to California's.

NetChoice has also sued over laws in Colorado and Minnesota. A district court judge in Colorado sided with NetChoice and blocked enforcement of that measure. Colorado has appealed that decision to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which hasn't yet issued a ruling.

The group's suit in Minnesota is currently pending before U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Brasel.

Unless blocked in court, the California statute will take effect in January.