SCOTUS sides with Texas on app store age verification, denies emergency block

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a requests to block Texas’ app store age verification law on grounds it would violate Constitutional free speech protections on Monday.

But the fight over the Lone Star State’s App Store Accountability Act is far from over. The field of battle merely shifts back to the lower courts.

The law has already been killed and brought back from the dead several times. In December 2025, a federal district court judge ruled that SB2420 likely violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and blocked it. The state appealed, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court in June to block it pending the outcome of a full Constitutional challenge against the Act. The CCIA argued the Act clearly violates the First Amendment, and the State responded (via NPR) that the Fifth Circuit motions panel, in granting its appeal, noted the government meets the correct level of scrutiny by advancing important interests and does not go beyond them in limiting free speech.

The Supreme Court also sided with Texas on the Constitutional validity of age assurance requirements for access to online pornography in a precedent-setting case last year.

Now the state will be able to enforce SB2420 while it seeks the same result for age restrictions at the app store level.

Debate continues around the appropriate place in the stack for age assurance to take place, and Texas’ law may provide helpful data on the relative effectiveness of app store age checks, depending on how long it survives.

Article Topics

age verification  |  App Store Accountability Act (ASA)  |  app store age verification  |  Texas age verification