Many parents might not like this ruling, but a federal court judge on Friday ruled that social media firms cannot be forced to block certain content from teens. The court was brought into the situation after tech companies challenged a new Texas law called the Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act. The law demands that social media platforms verify the age of their users and adds other policies that social media firms need to follow.
The law was supposed to take effect Sunday. September 1st, but the ruling by Judge Robert Pitman called out the “monitoring and filtering” requirements as a threat to speech online. Besides verifying a user’s age, the Scope Act limits the collection of data from those under 18, prevents teens from viewing targeted ads, and also prevents them from entering into any financial transaction without parental approval.
The law also demanded that social media platforms must put into place a plan that would “prevent the known minor’s exposure to harmful material.” Such harmful material includes content that “glorifies” or promotes topics like suicide, substance abuse, and grooming. Any platform considered to show content that is more than one-third harmful or obscene (the latter would be based on existing state law) would be forced to come up with a way to verify a user’s age.
The plaintiffs who initiated the legal action were tech industry groups NetChoice and the CCIA. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) also filed a lawsuit against the law. The judge ruled partially in favor of NetChoice on Friday issuing an injunction against the monitoring and filtering rules while the case continues to be heard.
For the moment, some parts of the Scope Act remain in effect. The rule preventing platforms from collecting personal data from teens under 18 is still being enforced as is the rule requiring age verification for sites with large amounts of adult content. It should be noted that Texas already had a law requiring that sites verify the ages of those visiting adult sites. Judge Pitman felt that the wording of the Act was too vague. His criticism mirrored the challenge from FIRE who said that words like “grooming” could apply to all LGBTQ content.
“Terms like ‘promoting,’ ‘glorifying,’ ‘substance abuse,’ ‘harassment,’ and ‘grooming’ are undefined, despite their potential wide breadth and politically charged nature. At what point, for example, does alcohol use become ‘substance abuse?’ When does an extreme diet cross the line into an ‘eating disorder?'” Judge Robert Pitman
Judge Pitman noted that an Attorney General looking to enforce the law could do so selectively by deciding that content about smoking marijuana glorifies substance abuse even if smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol does not. The judge also noted that while social media platforms would have to remove controversial content, the same content could be found on other media platforms.
The bottom line is that at this moment, teens in Texas cannot be legally blocked from viewing content about marijuana. That could change depending on how Judge Pitman rules when the case comes to an end.