NetChoice Lawsuits

The 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court was "wrong" when it affirmed a district court’s “sweeping” preliminary injunction that barred dozens of White House officials and four federal agencies from coercing social media platforms to moderate their content, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a 6-3 decision Wednesday in Murthy v. Missouri (docket 23-411).

NetChoice is seeking summary judgment for a second time as it aims to permanently block SB-396, Arkansas’ age verification Social Media Safety Act. The law violates the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague, the association’s brief said Friday (docket 5:23-cv-05105) in U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas in Fayetteville.

NetChoice seeks a two-week deadline extension, to July 12, to reply in support of its motion for a preliminary injunction to block Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) from enforcing the state’s newly enacted Minor Protection in Social Media Act when it takes effect Oct. 1 (see 2405060006), said NetChoice’s unopposed motion Monday (docket 2:23-cv-00911) in U.S. District Court for Utah in Salt Lake City. The “modest extension” will give NetChoice adequate time to respond to the arguments raised in Reyes’ 60-page opposition brief and won’t delay the close of briefing in this case, said the motion. NetChoice will still file its opposition to Reyes’ motion to dismiss on June 28, it said. Reyes is seeking the dismissal of count VI of NetChoice’s 11-count complaint that argues Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act preempts Utah’s new social media law (see 2406030026). NetChoice opposes the statute as “an unconstitutional restriction on minors’ and adults’ ability to access and engage in protected speech.”

NetChoice seeks an injunction blocking Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr (R) from enforcing Georgia Act 564, an amendment to the state’s Inform Consumers Act, when it takes effect July 1, said NetChoice’s complaint Thursday in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta.

Mississippi, by enacting its House Bill 1126, is the latest state to attempt to “unconstitutionally regulate” minors’ access to online speech, “and impair adults’ access along the way,” said NetChoice’s complaint Friday (docket 1:24-cv-00170) against Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) in U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi.

NetChoice and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R), having filed dueling motions for summary judgment May 3 in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio over the state's social media parental notification law (see 2405060004), followed that up Monday with dueling responses in opposition (docket 2:24-cv-00047).

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) is seeking the dismissal of count VI of NetChoice’s 11-count complaint that argues Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (see 2405060006) preempts the state’s Minor Protection in Social Media Act, a motion said Friday (docket 2:23-cv-00911) in U.S. District Court for Utah in Salt Lake City. Katherine Hass, director of Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection, joined Reyes in the motion.

Montana’s attempt to ban TikTok “is part of a long line of recent efforts by state governments to impose crippling restrictions on businesses that operate over the internet,” said NetChoice’s amicus brief Monday (docket 24-34) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the plaintiff-appellees -- five individual TikTok users challenging the ban, plus TikTok itself.

NetChoice seeks a preliminary injunction blocking Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) and Katherine Hass, director of Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection, from enforcing the state’s newly enacted Minor Protection in Social Media Act when it takes effect Oct. 1, said its motion Friday (docket 2:23-cv-00911) in U.S. District Court for Utah in Salt Lake City. The statute “is an unconstitutional restriction on minors’ and adults’ ability to access and engage in protected speech,” it said. It “impermissibly regulates the conditions under which minors and adults can access certain websites and how those websites facilitate, disseminate, and display protected speech,” it said. The entire statute violates the First Amendment and the due process clause “because its definition of what entities are covered is unconstitutional,” it said. Parts of the statute also “independently violate” the First Amendment and the due process clause and are federally preempted under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, it said. It’s the second time Utah has enacted a law “violating bedrock constitutional principles of free speech” in attempting to regulate minors’ access to social media, it said. After Utah enacted 2023’s Social Media Regulation Act, NetChoice sued and moved to preliminarily enjoin that law’s enforcement, it said. Utah responded by repealing its 2023 law and replacing it in part with the new statute, it said. But the newly enacted statute “suffers from many of the same flaws ... while at the same time creating new ones,” it said. The statute regulates websites’ ability to publish and distribute speech to minors and speech by minors, it said. It also regulates minors’ ability to produce and receive speech and adults’ access to speech, it said. Minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection, said NetChoice. Governments can’t burden adults’ right to access protected speech “in their efforts to regulate the speech appropriate for minors,” it said. The court “should reach the same result as courts across the country that have enjoined similar attempts to regulate online speech,” it said. “Regrettably, Utah’s government has chosen to double down on its misguided laws that thwart parents, undermine the state's dynamic creator economy, jeopardize the data security of its citizens and violate their constitutional rights,” said Chris Marchese, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, in a statement Friday. Utahns, not the government, “should be able to determine how they and their families use technology,” he said.

NetChoice and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) filed dueling motions for summary judgment Friday (docket 2:24-cv-00047) in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio over the state's social media parental notification law. NetChoice’s motion seeks to permanently block the statute on constitutional grounds, while Yost’s motion defends the law as "valid," and argues for its enforcement.