Supreme Court sides with Texas on age verification, parental consent for apps

The Supreme Court sided with Texas on Monday in emergency litigation over a law that its opponents said marked the first time a state has ever required its citizens “to prove their age before reading a newspaper, entering a bookstore, or even accessing the internet.”

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Student and trade groups brought emergency applications to the high court against the law, called the App Store Accountability Act. The law is intended to help parents direct and supervise children’s downloads of apps and in-app purchases by requiring age verification, parental consent and age rating and content display.

A federal judge halted the law, finding that it was likely unconstitutional due to its restrictions on speech. Then a federal appellate panel granted the state’s request to lift the judge’s order, leading the groups to seek urgent relief from the high court.

Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, a nonprofit that says its mission is to mobilize young people around educational advocacy and increase youth visibility in policymaking, said the justices should vacate the appellate order “and restore the status quo protecting Texas minors’ access to constitutionally protected content and their parents’ authority to make different content decisions for their families.”

SEAT said the case raises First Amendment issues beyond Texas because most states now have laws requiring age verification or age restrictions for accessing protected speech.

The group cited a high court case from last year in another Texas appeal, where the court said states can require age verification to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content. SEAT said this case is different from last year’s ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton because the speech at issue in that case was limited to obscene content for minors that isn’t protected by the First Amendment, whereas this case involves non-obscene speech.