WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday that it will allow a controversial age verification law targeting social media networks operating in the digital space of the state of Mississippi to be enforced as litigation related to the law advances.
NetChoice, a trade group representing the mainstream digital industry, filed an emergency application in mid-July with the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, asking for a limit on Mississippi's social media age verification law. The case is NetChoice v. Fitch, which challenges House Bill (HB) 1126, per AVN's previous reporting.
As typically is the case with the emergency docket, the high court granted the state's request to deny an emergency application by NetChoice to block the law. However, one of the justices expressed his concern that HB 1126 is "likely unconstitutional" and would violate the First Amendment rights of NetChoice's member companies. Concurring with the decision not to grant NetChoice its emergency stay, Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the conservative majority was alarmed at Mississippi's overreach via HB 1126.
“To be clear, NetChoice has, in my view, demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits—namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely violate its members’ First Amendment rights under this court’s precedents," Kavanaugh wrote.
"In short, under this court’s case law as it currently stands, the Mississippi law is likely unconstitutional," he added.
This runs counter to Kavanaugh's support for a Texas age verification law that specifically targets adult entertainment content. In that case, Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton, he joined the five other conservatives of the Roberts court in affirming that the state has a right to suppress free speech rights if it regulates online pornography.
"Although we’re disappointed with the Court’s decision, Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed in defending the First Amendment—not just in this case but across all NetChoice’s ID-for-Speech lawsuits," said Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, in a statement.
As a trade group, NetChoice represents major tech companies like X and Reddit, two of the only mainstream social media networks that allow pornography and sexually explicit content. Both platforms are popular marketing tools for content creators and studios to attract audiences and traffic.
