Texas’ social media law takes another hit with temporary blocks on three more provisions

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A federal district court on Friday has issued more temporary blocks on provisions of a Texas law designed to restrict what kinds of materials and advertisements minors can see on social media and age verification requirements.

Judge Robert Pitman enjoined several provisions of the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, also known as the SCOPE Act, calling the blocked sections “unconstitutionally vague.” While not blocking the law in its entirety, the injunction is not the first against the SCOPE Act and goes further than previous rulings to block what the law can restrict minors from seeing on social media.

The lawsuit was filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a first amendment activist group representing four plaintiffs, and Davis Wright Tremaine, a private media law firm. The groups have called the act overly broad and tailored to serve state interest, while state officials feel more oversight is needed to curtail the sometimes harmful effects of social media use on children.

The background: Passed in the 2023 Legislature as House Bill 18, supporters of the SCOPE Act hoped the law would give parents more control over what their children are exposed to online and how minors’ sensitive information is handled by social media companies. But a day before the law was set to go into effect, Pitman granted a temporary block of two sections of the law that regulated certain harmful content platforms could show to minors in a separate suit.

The new injunction goes further, blocking the same two sections as well as three additional provisions: two that would restrict certain ads from being displayed or directed specifically toward minors, and one requiring age verification. Both injunctions are temporary and only apply until final judgments are issued for each case.

“The Court enjoined every substantive provision of the SCOPE Act we challenged, granting even broader relief than its first preliminary injunction,” Davis Wright Tremaine partner Adam Sieff said in a statement.

Since the law’s passing, Texas also has attempted to curtail content it deems as inappropriate and in violation of the act, and in October, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued social media companies over alleged violations of the law. A section of the law cited in Paxton’s suit is one of the five temporarily blocked by the injunction Friday.

The injunction comes as parents are becoming increasingly concerned about social media’s effects on childrens’ mental health, and as legislators are weighing further restrictions on the platforms.

Why FIRE sued: FIRE is a nonprofit civil liberties group that helps protect free speech rights on college campuses. The four plaintiffs the group is representing in the case range from an Austin-based advertising company to a youth group designed to teach students how to engage with policymaking. FIRE argued to the court that the SCOPE Act was a content-based statute with vague determinations that did not specify enough what content could fall under categories in the law like “grooming.”

“States can’t block adults from engaging with legal speech in the name of protecting children, nor can they keep minors from ideas that the government deems unsuitable,” FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere said in a statement.

What the state says: The Texas Tribune reached out to a spokesperson with Paxton’s office for comment. Paxton has already filed to appeal the decision to the 5th Circuit Court, according to online court records.

Broader impact: As state legislators meet to discuss what new restrictions could be placed on social media, further blocks on the SCOPE Act could affect what lawmakers see as viable ways of regulating platforms — both in and out of Texas. Several similar pieces of legislation looking to follow the SCOPE Act are also set to be discussed in other states’ legislative sessions, including Nevada’s Youth Online Safety Act and South Carolina’s App Store Accountability Act.