KIDS 00 courts and state laws
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Legal Landscape — Courts & State Laws
synthesized-reference . retrieved 2026-06-28
sources: SCOTUS opinions, Wikipedia, Keller & Heckman, Holland & Knight, Tech Policy Press, Perkins Coie, CRS
archived for offline mesh reading
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The federal bill exists inside a fast-moving body of litigation and a 50-state patchwork.
This is the terrain any enacted KIDS Act will land in — and be judged against.
Foundational First Amendment cases
- ***Reno v. ACLU* (1997)** — internet gets full First Amendment protection; CDA indecency
provisions struck.
- ***Ashcroft v. ACLU* (2004)** — COPA fails **strict scrutiny**; content restrictions on
"harmful to minors" material are very hard to sustain.
- ***Moody v. NetChoice* (2024)** — platform **content-moderation/curation is protected
editorial speech**; remanded. Directly relevant to whether a "duty of care" or feed-design
mandate is content regulation.
- ***Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton* (Jun 27, 2025, 6–3)** — **upholds** Texas age
verification for adult-content sites under **intermediate scrutiny**. A doctrinal shift:
age-gating survives a *lower* bar than COPA faced. Emboldens verification mandates — but
CDT/others argue it is limited to sexual content, not a general license.
The state patchwork (and the injunctions)
States moved while Congress stalled; industry (NetChoice, CCIA) sued nearly everywhere.
/ State / Law / Type / Status /
/---/---/---/
/ **California AADC** (AB 2273, 2022) / Age-appropriate design code / Partially enjoined; *NetChoice v. Bonta* — 9th Cir. 2nd decision **Mar 12, 2026** /
/ **Utah** Social Media Regulation Act; App Store Accountability Act (2025) / Age verification / parental consent / Challenged; First Amendment vagueness suit filed **Feb 2026** /
/ **Texas** SCOPE Act (HB 18); **SB 2420** app-store age verification (2025) / Design + app-store verification / CCIA First Amendment challenge to SB 2420 /
/ **Arkansas** (SB 396) / Social-media age verification / Permanently enjoined — *NetChoice v. Griffin* /
/ **Ohio** / Parental-notification statute / Struck — *NetChoice v. Yost* /
/ **Mississippi** / Age verification / SCOTUS **declined** emergency block; Kavanaugh signaled likely unconstitutional on merits /
/ **Texas** HB 1181 / Adult-content age verification / **Upheld** — *Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton* (SCOTUS 2025) /
**Pattern:** courts are **hostile to broad social-media age-gating** (Arkansas, Ohio,
California AADC) but **receptive to narrow adult-content verification** (Texas HB 1181).
Design-code laws that look like *privacy defaults* fare better than laws that look like
*content or access restrictions*.
Why this matters for the KIDS Act
1. **Preemption collision.** H.R. 7757 preempts *some* state laws. If it becomes a weaker
national ceiling, states and AGs will fight to preserve stronger regimes — and litigate
the scope of preemption.
2. **Design-features vs. duty-of-care.** The House chose feature bans precisely because
*Moody* and *Ashcroft* make **content-tied** liability legally fragile. Whether feature
bans are "content-neutral enough" is the untested question.
3. **Age verification is the swing issue.** Post-*Paxton*, verification is more defensible
than a year ago — but a *general* social-media verification mandate has not been blessed
by the Court, only adult content.
4. **App-store layer.** 2025 app-store verification laws (Apple/Google as chokepoints) are
a parallel front that could make platform-level rules moot — or redundant.
*Legislative history behind these: [[../History/02-legislative-timeline]]. The policy
arguments: [[../Controversies/00-key-debates-and-controversies]].*
Sources
- SCOTUS: *Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton*, No. 23-1122 (2025); *Moody v. NetChoice* (2024)
- CRS LSB11354; Perkins Coie; Sidley Data Matters — Paxton analysis
- Keller & Heckman; Holland & Knight — 2025/2026 state kids'-privacy reviews
- Wikipedia — "Social media age verification laws in the United States"
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