NetChoice wins permanent injunction to Louisiana social media age check law

NetChoice has quashed another U.S. online safety law. The legal lobby for Silicon Valley’s biggest companies has issued a release celebrating a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana to grant NetChoice’s motion for summary judgment in NetChoice v. Murrill, striking down Louisiana’s Act 456, which imposes age restrictions on social media platforms.

NetChoice says the judge, John W. deGravelles, issued a “decisive ruling” declaring that the law violates the First Amendment, in that “the state cannot use a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”

“Today, the First Amendment prevailed in Louisiana,” says Paul Taske, co-director of NetChoice’s Litigation Center. “The government lacks authority to restrict access to lawful speech it does not like. As the district court recognized, the First Amendment forbids the government from posting ID-checks outside the library door – and the same is true when it comes to social media.”

NetChoice has made a full-time project of litigating age assurance laws on behalf of Meta, X and other social media companies, always on First Amendment grounds. Its release boasts of “a growing list of federal court victories for NetChoice, following similar rulings in Ohio (NetChoice v. Yost) and Arkansas (NetChoice v. Griffin).” Funded to the gills by some of the world’s richest people, it intends to be a permanent irritant to legislators, staking legal arguments in the First Amendment to enable social media to retain its youngest users.

“Parents, not the government, are best suited to decide how their families use the internet,” says Taske, as though legislators around the world were not responding to an overwhelming call for help from parents.

The organization doubles down on its commitment to keep kids as young as 13 on social media, saying the Louisiana decision “sends a clear message to policymakers nationwide that legislative good intentions do not override the Constitution. Laws that attempt to restrict access to speech or discriminate based on the content of a website will continue to be struck down.”

Alabama first state to pass app store age law in 2026

One issue on which Meta and NetChoice differ is the case for age assurance at the app store level. Meta has consistently lobbied for it, as a way to take the pressure off its individual platforms. NetChoice, meanwhile, objects to any kind of online age check, and has mounted legal cases against various pieces of app store age assurance legislation based on the App Store Accountability Act.

It will surely pipe up to pooh-pooh the one just passed in Alabama. A report from the Alabama Reflector says HB 161, which “requires app store providers to take action regarding age verification, parental notification and data protection,” passed 35-0 with an amendment ensuring that age restrictions don’t interfere with any other age restricting state laws.

Under the Alabama law, if an app store provider determines that a user is underage, it must “require the account to become affiliated with a parent account.”

The piece quotes Senator April Weaver (R-Hoover), who points out that “when we were growing up, we didn’t have iPhones and we didn’t have the exposure to such things as they have online now. Just looking at the things that I see on social media, I’m actually horrified that our children are exposed to such things as this at such a young age.”

Snap crackles at Florida law: ‘could ban teenagers from entering bookshops’

Snap Inc. is an association member of NetChoice, but it is also pursuing its own legal arguments in Florida. A report from Law360 says the company that runs Snapchat has filed a brief before the Eleventh Circuit appellate court, urging it to rule that House Bill 3, the Online Protections for Minors Act, is unconstitutional in banning kids 13 and under from creating social media accounts and requiring 14- and 15-year-olds to get parental consent.

“Online platforms like Snapchat are not the equivalent of establishments that serve alcohol; they are democratic forums for speech,” Snap says. “Under Florida’s reasoning, it could ban teenagers from entering bookshops, movie theaters, or churches, without ever implicating the First Amendment.”

This has become a favourite tactic: drawing an equivalence between social media and books, movies or (in this case) religion. Movies are, in fact, typically rated and restricted according to an age scheme; books have been around for two millennia. Meanwhile, representatives from Meta, Snap and more are in California courts to defend against allegations that their companies knowingly created addictive products that harm young people’s mental health. In this, they once again most closely resemble not publishers, film studios or pastors, but big cigarette companies fighting for their right to continue poisoning people.

Another statement from the company tries to point out how unfair it is that Snap’s addictive features should be illegal while “these so-called ‘addictive features’ are permitted on any site or app that is not sufficiently popular, that does not require users to create an account, or that does not involve ‘social’ speech.” Video games are allowed to be addictive, says Snap, so why shouldn’t we be?

Snap, then, is like the movies, and like the library, and like video games, and like God. It wishes to be everything and nothing, or both, at its own convenience. Social media, as the saying goes, is a helluva drug.

Article Topics

age verification  |  Alabama  |  app store age verification  |  Florida  |  legislation  |  Louisiana  |  Snapchat  |  United States