• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, July 17, 2024

Mississippi's top law enforcement official this week asked a federal appellate court to allow immediate enforcement of a law that would require digital platforms to verify all users' ages, and prohibit minors from creating social media accounts, without parental permission.

The measure reflects a “targeted effort to address the life-altering and life-threatening harms to children that proliferate on interactive social-media platforms,” state Attorney General Lynn Fitch argues in papers filed Tuesday with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

She adds that Mississippi will be “irreparably harmed” if it isn't allowed to enforce the law, which was passed earlier this year and slated to take effect July 1.

In addition to the age verification provisions, the statute, which was blocked earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden in the Southern District of Mississippi, would require social platforms to prevent or mitigate minors' exposure to “harmful material” -- defined as content that promotes or facilitates eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual abuse and online bullying, among other material.

If allowed to take effect, the measure would apply to websites that allow users to create profiles and socially interact, with exemptions for employment-related sites and sites that “primarily” offer news, sports, commerce, online video games and content curated by the service provider.

The tech industry group NetChoice sued over the measure, arguing it infringes the First Amendment in several ways. Among other reasons, the group said the provisions regarding potentially harmful content amount to governmental censorship.

The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation sided with NetChoice, arguing in a friend-of-the-court brief that the age verification provisions infringe all internet users' free-speech rights and also compromise people's privacy.

Ozerden issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement, ruling that the measure likely runs afoul of the First Amendment, which broadly protects free speech.

He said in a 40-page ruling that the measure's restrictions on speech aren't a good fit for the goal of protecting minors. He noted in the decision that even though there have been reports of suspected child sexual exploitation on Amazon and Roblox, both services are exempt from the law's restrictions.

Ozerden also said the statute's definition of “digital service provider” -- including the carve-out for services that “primarily” offered news, sports or certain other material -- likely was too vague to be constitutional.

“It is unclear what test one uses to determine how a digital service 'primarily' functions,” he wrote.

He added that the provision requiring all users to verify their ages “burdens adults' First Amendment rights.”

Fitch says in her new papers that the law advances the goal of “protecting minors from online harms.”

Each provision “makes it harder for predators to prey on minors online by making it harder for minors to participate in dangerous online platforms, likelier that parents will oversee minors’ online activities, and likelier that platforms will take measures to avert harms,” Fitch argues.