LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked Arkansas from enforcing a new law that would have required parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts, preventing the state from becoming the first to impose such a restriction.
U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks granted a preliminary injunction that NetChoice — a tech industry trade group whose members include TikTok, Facebook parent Meta, and X, formerly known as Twitter — had requested against the law. The measure, which Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law in April, was set to take effect Friday.
Arkansas’ law is similar to a first-in-the-nation restriction signed into law earlier this year in Utah. That law is not set to take effect until March 2024. NetChoice last year filed a lawsuit challenging a California law requiring tech companies to put kids’ safety first by barring them from profiling children or using personal information in ways that could harm children physically or mentally.
In a 50-page ruling, Brooks said NetChoice was likely to succeed in its challenge to the Arkansas law’s constitutionality and questioned the effectiveness of the restrictions.
“Age-gating social media platforms for adults and minors does not appear to be an effective approach when, in reality, it is the content on particular platforms that is driving the state’s true concerns,” wrote Brooks, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama.
Similar laws placing restrictions on minors’ use of social media have been enacted in Texas and Louisiana, which also aren’t scheduled to take effect until next year. Top Republicans in Georgia have said they’ll push for a parental consent measure in the Legislature next year, and some members of Congress have proposed similar legislation.
NetChoice argued the requirement violated the constitutional rights of users and arbitrarily singled out types of speech that would be restricted.
“We’re pleased the court sided with the First Amendment and stopped Arkansas’ unconstitutional law from censoring free speech online and undermining the privacy of Arkansans, their families and their businesses as our case proceeds,” Chris Marchese, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said in a statement. “We look forward to seeing the law struck down permanently.”
