State lawmakers’ second swing at imposing requirements on social media companies with the goal of limiting young Utahns’ access to their platforms won’t take effect as soon as the Legislature planned after a federal judge blocked the law Tuesday, saying it likely violates the First Amendment.
Initially scheduled to take effect in October, a district judge put the law on hold while the case continues because he said it “imposes unjustified, content-based restrictions on social media companies’ speech.”
“The court recognizes the State’s earnest desire to protect young people from the novel challenges associated with social media use,” U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby wrote.
He continued, “But owing to the First Amendment’s paramount place in our democratic system, even well-intentioned legislation that regulates speech based on content must satisfy a tremendously high level of constitutional scrutiny. And on the record before the court, Defendants have yet to show the act does.”
Passed earlier this year in response to pleas from parents to curb the mental health harms they say are caused by the apps, the law requires social media companies to verify every user’s age and implement default privacy settings for anyone under 18 years old.
Those settings, which can only be changed with parental consent, restrict the account’s visibility and control what personal data the company can collect. The platforms also must disable “features that prolong user engagement” for that account, like autoplay and those that encourage continuous scrolling.
NetChoice, a conglomerate of online businesses, including internet giants like X and the parent companies for Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, said in a statement shared with The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday that if the law had been enforced, it “would backfire and endanger the very people it’s meant to help.”
Read the full story at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.