EFF and ACLU Urge Court to Maintain Block on Mississippi's 'Age Verification' Law

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared the EFF's "Deeplink" blog post:EFF, along with the ACLU and the ACLU of Mississippi, filed an amicus brief on Thursday asking a federal appellate court to continue to block Mississippi's HB 1126 - a bill that imposes age verification mandates on social media services across the internet. Our friend-of-the-court brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, argues that HB 1126 is "an extraordinary censorship law that violates all internet users' First Amendment rights to speak and to access protected speech" online. HB 1126 forces social media sites to verify the age of every user and requires minors to get explicit parental consent before accessing online spaces. It also pressures them to monitor and censor content on broad, vaguely defined topics - many of which involve constitutionally protected speech. These sweeping provisions create significant barriers to the free and open internet and "force adults and minors alike to sacrifice anonymity, privacy, and security to engage in protected online expression." A federal district court already prevented HB 1126 from going into effect, ruling that it likely violated the First Amendment. At the heart of our opposition to HB 1126 is its dangerous impact on young people's free expression. Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as adults to access and engage in protected speech online. "No legal authority permits lawmakers to burden adults' access to political, religious, educational, and artistic speech with restrictive age-verification regimes out of a concern for what minors might see" [argues the brief]. "Nor is there any legal authority that permits lawmakers to block minors categorically from engaging in protected expression on general purpose internet sites like those regulated by HB 1126..." "The law requires all users to verify their age before accessing social media, which could entirely block access for the millions of U.S. adults who lack government-issued ID..." And it also asks another question. "Would you want everything you do online to be linked to your government-issued ID?" And the blog post makes one more argument. "in an era where data breaches and identity theft are alarmingly common." So the bill "puts every user's personal data at risk... No one - neither minors nor adults - should have to sacrifice their privacy or anonymity in order to exercise their free speech rights online."

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