An internet trade association has asked the Supreme Court to prevent Mississippi from enforcing a law restricting minors’ access to social media platforms.
The law, known as House Bill 1126, regulates social media websites operating in the state. The statute requires minors to obtain parental consent to use the sites. It also requires platforms to verify users’ ages and imposes fines for noncompliance.
The emergency application filed by NetChoice comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted a lower court order that shielded the platforms from the law’s requirements.
Nine platforms that belong to the trade association are affected by the ruling. They are Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Nextdoor, Reddit, and Dreamwidth.
The emergency application in NetChoice LLC v. Fitch was docketed by the high court on July 23 and directed to Justice Samuel Alito.
The applicant, NetChoice, is a trade association representing internet companies. The respondent, Lynn Fitch, is Mississippi’s attorney general.
House Bill 1126 requires the platforms to make reasonable efforts to verify the age of users.
Under the law, the websites are not allowed to let a minor have a social media account unless he or she has parental consent. The application asserts that the additional requirement that a user report his or her age is illegal because it makes a person take action to gain access to material to which he or she is “constitutionally entitled to view free from governmental restraint.”
The websites are also required to make reasonable efforts to prevent minors from being exposed to “harmful material” that “promotes or facilitates” harms to minors. Such “harms” include self-harm, encouragement of illegal drug use, stalking, violence, and online bullying. Among other harms are child pornography, sexual exploitation, incitement of violence, and any other illegal activity, the application reads.
If the law is broken, the state may seek an injunction, a fine of up to $10,000 per violation, and criminal penalties under the state’s deceptive trade practices law.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, signed the law on April 30, 2024. Its effective date was July 1, 2024.
NetChoice filed a lawsuit asking for a preliminary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect. The group argued that the law violated First Amendment free speech protections.
A federal district court agreed with NetChoice, blocking the law after finding that it was likely unconstitutional.
Fitch filed a brief with the Fifth Circuit, urging that court to reject the district court’s order, which she said “rests on serious errors.”
“[The law] imposes modest duties on the interactive online platforms that are especially attractive to [sexual] predators,” she said.
The district court erred when it ruled that NetChoice would probably succeed in its constitutional claims, according to Fitch.
The Fifth Circuit lifted the injunction but did not address NetChoice’s First Amendment argument. The appeals court sent the case back to the district court for a second look.
The district court found that the law was “unconstitutional as applied to certain of Plaintiff NetChoice, LLC’s members.” It blocked enforcement of the law against the nine websites that are members of the trade association.
On July 17, the Fifth Circuit granted the state’s request to stay the block imposed by the district court while the lawsuit continues. This allowed the law to be enforced against the nine social media platforms. The circuit court’s one-page ruling did not explain the decision.
In the new application, NetChoice is asking the Supreme Court to halt the Fifth Circuit ruling, which would allow its members “to continue disseminating speech to users free from unconstitutional restraints.”
NetChoice argues that it will likely succeed in its argument on the merits and that its members and their users “will suffer irreparable injury without a stay.”
The association also argues that safeguarding the First Amendment rights of its members and their users is in the public interest.
People have a right to access social media websites because they contain “vast amounts of protected speech,” the application states, citing the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling in Packingham v. North Carolina.
Moreover, the application reads, Mississippi has failed to show “a direct causal link between” access to the “regulated websites and harms to minors.” The law’s “blunderbuss approach to regulating online speech” is unconstitutional, the application states.
The application comes after the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton that states may require commercial websites to use age-verification technology to prevent minors from accessing sexually explicit materials.
The June 27 decision dealt with a Texas law that fines website operators $10,000 for every day users’ ages go unverified. The penalty rises to $250,000 if minors access sexual material that the law covers.
A porn industry group mounted a legal challenge to the Texas law, arguing that it violates the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. Texas argued that the law was both constitutional and necessary to prevent underage people from accessing graphic sexual material.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the majority opinion, said even though the state law interferes with the right of adult visitors to these websites, it is consistent with the First Amendment. The law advances an important government interest, which is the state’s interest in protecting children from sexual content, and it goes no further than what is needed to advance that interest, he wrote.
In NetChoice LLC v. Fitch, Alito has directed Fitch to reply to the application by 4 p.m. on July 30.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared July 27, 2025, in The Epoch Times.