Group challenges restrictions on children’s access to social media

A tech industry group came to the Supreme Court this week, asking the justices to temporarily block Mississippi from enforcing restrictions on minors’ access to social media against several major social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Reddit, and YouTube. The group, NetChoice, told the justices that if the state is allowed to enforce the restrictions, some users of social-media websites will face an “immediate loss of First Amendment rights,” while the websites will suffer “enormous, ‘nonrecoverable’ compliance costs” – which for “at least one member” could exceed its overall budget.

Mississippi passed the law, known as House Bill 1126, in 2024. The law imposes parental-consent requirements for young people to create social-media accounts, requires social-media sites to verify users’ ages before allowing them to create accounts, and requires sites to “make commercially reasonable efforts to develop and implement a strategy” to shield young people from being exposed to harmful material and content that promotes (for example) self-harm, bullying, and substance abuse.

The law imposes civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, and it holds out the possibility of criminal penalties, as well.

NetChoice went to federal court, arguing that the law violated the First Amendment. U.S. District Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden agreed and issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited the state from enforcing the law against several specific websites that are members of NetChoice.

Ozerden acknowledged that Mississippi may have “a compelling interest in safeguarding the physical and psychological wellbeing of minors online.” But, he concluded, keeping minors off social media altogether unless they can obtain affirmative parental consent is an overly broad solution to that problem.

The state asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to temporarily pause Ozerden’s ruling, and on July 17 it agreed to do so. That prompted NetChoice to come to the Supreme Court this week, , asking the justices to step in. Putting the 5th Circuit’s ruling on hold, NetChoice told the justices, would preserve the status quo while litigation continues.

The court instructed Mississippi to respond to NetChoice’s request by 4 p.m. on Wednesday, July 30.

Disclosure: Please note that counsel of record for NetChoice is Scott Keller, who is married to Sarah Isgur, a senior editor at The Dispatch. Dispatch Media, Inc. owns SCOTUSblog.