by A federal judge in the US state of Utah has temporarily blocked laws on access to social media that politicians believe are intended to protect the mental health and privacy of children. The laws are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order against laws that would have required social media companies to verify the age of their users, disable certain features and restrict the use of accounts owned by Utah children.
The laws were set to take effect on October 1, but are blocked pending the outcome of the case filed by NetChoice, a nonprofit industry association for internet companies including Google, Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – Snap and X.
Utah lawmakers passed the Utah Minor Protection in Social Media Act to replace legislation passed in 2023 that was challenged as unconstitutional. State officials believed the 2024 law would hold up in court.
But Shelby disagreed.
“The Court recognizes the State’s sincere desire to protect young people from the new challenges associated with social media use,” Shelby wrote in his order. However, the State has not shown a compelling governmental interest in violating the social media companies’ First Amendment rights, he wrote.
Republican Gov. Spencer Cox expressed disappointment with the court’s decision and acknowledged it could be a long fight. But given the harm social media causes to children, he said it is “a fight worth fighting.”
“To be clear, social media companies could voluntarily do anything the law requires to protect our children right now. But they refuse to do so. Instead, they continue to put their profits above the well-being of our children. This must stop, and Utah will continue to lead the fight.”
NetChoice argues that Utah residents would have to provide more information to verify their age than social media companies typically collect, putting more information at risk of data misuse.
A few months after Utah became the first state to pass laws regulating children’s social media use in 2023, the state sued TikTok and Meta for allegedly luring children with addictive features.
Utah state law passed in 2024 would have required default privacy settings for minors’ accounts to limit access to direct messages and sharing features and disable elements such as autoplay and push notifications that lawmakers believe could lead to excessive use.
Parents could gain access to their children’s accounts and have grounds to sue a social media company if their child’s mental health deteriorates due to excessive use of an algorithmically curated app. Social media companies must meet a long list of requirements – including a three-hour daily limit and a 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. blackout – to avoid liability.
The laws would shift the burden of proof from families to social media companies to prove that their curated content was not, in whole or in part, the cause of a child’s depression, anxiety, or self-harming behavior. The companies would have to pay at least $10,000 in damages for each case where negative mental health outcomes occur.
NetChoice has obtained injunctions temporarily suspending similar laws restricting social media in California, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Texas, the organization said.
“With this sixth injunction against these excessive laws, we hope policymakers will focus on sensible and constitutional solutions for the digital age,” said Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s litigation director.
