Tennessee’s social media age-verification law should be blocked because it violates the First Amendment, NetChoice said Thursday, filing a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Tennessee’s HB-1891 violates the Constitution in the same way as laws in California, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi, Texas and Utah, the association said. “HB 1891 would prevent Tennesseans -- minors and adults alike -- from discussing politics, catching up with friends, or reading the news online unless they surrender their sensitive personal data first,” said Litigation Center Associate Director Paul Taske. “Not only does this violate the First Amendment, but it also endangers the security of all Tennesseans, particularly children by creating a data target for hackers and criminals.” The Computer & Communications Industry Association wrote Gov. Bill Lee (R) in April, seeking a veto of the measure. HB-1891 holds social media platforms liable for failing to verify age, but it also tells companies to delete the information, which leaves them without a “means to document their compliance,” said CCIA.

Government officials should disclose their schedules except in limited circumstances when doing so might compromise their safety, former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Thursday, responding to criticism of FTC Chair Lina Khan. “Why aren't public officials' schedules made publicly available?” he said. “I asked and advocated long ago that they be, especially travel. Except in limited instances of security, make officials post them to the Internet!” FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar on Wednesday defended Khan’s upcoming appearances with Democratic lawmakers. She regularly attends “official events at the request of Members of Congress” and abides by the rules governing her role as chair, he said. House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., on Wednesday claimed Khan is improperly campaigning on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris (see 2410020046). Farrar noted Khan in 2024 attended “at least a dozen official events where Members of Congress invited her to listen to their constituents, because every community has a stake in fair competition.” Khan “speaks often about the importance of hearing from Americans across the country, because that’s how to best understand the way markets actually work,” he said.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should affirm a district court’s decision that blocks Mississippi’s social media age-verification law, TechFreedom said Tuesday in a brief supporting the tech industry (see 2409260053). Requiring that platforms verify age will chill online speech and violates the First Amendment, TechFreedom said. “Age verification requires identifying information, such as a user’s government-issued ID or a biometric scan of a user’s face,” Appellate Litigation Director Corbin Barthold said Wednesday. “Simply put, Mississippi is pressuring users to submit to invasive data collection.”

It’s “unacceptable” for FTC Chair Lina Khan to appear at upcoming policy events and use her position to “campaign” for Vice President Kamala Harris, House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said Wednesday. The lawmaker cited a report about Khan’s upcoming appearance with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, at a policy event focused on “corporate power.” Khan is also reportedly set to appear at three other events with Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill.; Mark Pocan, D-Wis.; and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., in their respective states. Gallego is running for a Senate seat. Civil-service employees at federal agencies are prohibited from participating in political activity under the Hatch Act. Rodgers said Khan should “release her upcoming public schedule immediately. Using her position—at an independent agency—to campaign for @VP is unacceptable and furthers my serious concerns that the @FTC is heading in the wrong direction & losing independence.” The agency declined comment. Khan’s three-year term as chair expired on Sept. 25. Khan can remain in her position until she steps down or is replaced.

DOJ on Monday declined to comment on former President Donald Trump’s promise to request an investigation of Google’s “illegal” bias should he win the presidency in November. The Republican nominee posted to Truth Social Friday claiming Google has “illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris.” He recommended the department “criminally prosecute” Google for “blatant” election interference. “If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States!” His post came two days after the conservative Media Research Center issued a report claiming Google is favoring Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. In a statement, Google dismissed the report’s findings: “Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of Search for relevant and common search queries. This report looked at a single rare search term on a single day a few weeks ago, and even for that search, both candidates’ websites ranked in the top results on Google.” The Trump and Harris campaigns didn’t comment Monday.

Kids’ online safety bills at the federal and state levels are creating compliance concerns with their vague language that potentially runs afoul of the First Amendment, a compliance attorney said Friday. Mark Brennan, a tech and telecom attorney with Hogan Lovells, told a webinar that bills like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which passed the Senate and the House Commerce Committee (see 2409230044), presents a legal framework with a lot of compliance “mystery.” He noted federal courts have ruled similar state-level bills are unconstitutional. The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice are leading several tech industry challenges against state laws around the country, including measures in Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Georgia (see 2409260053, 2409260062 and 2407170046). The knowledge standard contemplated in KOSA effectively tells companies they don’t necessarily need to verify age, but they’re also subject to “significant penalties” for harms minors suffer when interacting on platforms, said Brennan. It creates an environment where companies feel like they “have no choice but to verify" the age of all users, not just minors. Tech associations have argued age-verification requirements are a First Amendment violation because of their impact on access to protected speech.

Mississippi’s social media age-verification law is unconstitutional because it places a “government-mandated” barrier blocking access to protected speech, NetChoice argued Thursday before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2408010054). HB-1126 disfavors social speech in relation to professional speech and media-driven speech, the trade association said. NetChoice won a preliminary injunction against the law from the U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi on July 1 (see 2407160038), and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) appealed.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should reverse a district court injunction against a Georgia anti-retail-theft law because the tech industry failed to show federal law preempts the measure, Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr (R) argued Wednesday (docket 24-12273). Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (Act 564) May 6. It requires that e-commerce platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist verify information about high-volume sellers to prevent online sales of stolen goods, with a specific focus on under-the-radar cash transactions. U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg in July granted NetChoice’s request for preliminary injunction. Grimberg found the Inform Consumers Act, a 2023 federal law that imposes similar verification requirements on high-volume sellers, preempts Act 564. The state measure conflicts with the federal law’s language limiting its applications to transactions that “only” take place through the online marketplace in question, the judge found. Carr argued NetChoice can’t show that it’s impossible for companies to comply with both the federal and state laws. The Georgia law “slightly differs” from the federal law when it broadens the category of “discrete sales.” Georgia’s “slightly broader monitoring obligations go beyond federal regulation, not against federal regulation,” he argued. “They are complementary, there is no conflict.” NetChoice said in July that Act 564 “violates federal law and the Supremacy Clause, smothering Georgia’s thriving businesses with red tape.”

The “current technological reality of implementing” a Texas bill requiring age-verification on porn websites “means that it will burden adults’ access to constitutionally protected speech,” said the Center for Democracy and Technology, other nonprofits and three privacy professors in an amicus brief Friday. The groups and academics supported a challenge by the Free Speech Coalition of a Texas law at the U.S. Supreme Court. FSC is a porn industry trade association represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (see 2409170012). “The limitations of current age verification technology -- and the difference between the internet’s inherent capability to transmit and make available uploaded identifying data and the ability of a stationery-store owner to recall such data from a quick flash of ID -- create a significantly higher burden on adult access to protected content,” the amici wrote in case 23-50627. Several other groups also supported the FSC in amicus briefs posted Monday. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Reason Foundation and the First Amendment Lawyers Association said jointly that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals incorrectly granted the state “a free hand to force adult Texans to show their papers and surrender their privacy simply to access content protected by the First Amendment.” Another amici filing including TechFreedom and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said the 5th Circuit erroneously applied rational-basis review rather than strict scrutiny. Along similar lines, the Cato Institute wrote, “It is the government’s burden to prove that the law serves a compelling government interest and uses the least restrictive means to achieve that interest. Texas did not clear this high bar.” Agreeing with others, the Electronic Privacy Information Center wrote that it’s “important for [SCOTUS] to take special care in this case to apply a constitutional framework capable of distinguishing unconstitutional censorship laws from constitutional kids’ privacy and safety laws.” Meanwhile, the Institute for Justice said the Supreme Court should use the case to stop a “growing problem” of courts “selecting the standard of review based on the government’s professed motive rather than by examining the actual conduct subject to regulation under the law.” A group of internet law professors, including Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University's High Tech Law Institute, said age-verification gates online are costly, raise privacy concerns when they collect sensitive data, and discourage “readers from accessing constitutionally protected material.”

Amazon, Meta, Google, TikTok and other companies should change their data “surveillance” practices to improve user privacy, the FTC said Thursday, concluding a probe the Trump administration started. The FTC issued a staff report with recommendations for nine companies that received orders in December 2020 (see 2012140054). Republican commissioners said in statements that some of the recommendations exceed the FTC’s authority. The report details how companies “harvest an enormous amount” of data and monetize it for billions of dollars annually, Chair Lina Khan said. “These surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms.” The agency issued Section 6(b) orders to Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, X, Snap, ByteDance, Discord, Reddit and WhatsApp. Staff recommended data minimization practices, targeted advertising limits and more-stringent restrictions for children. The commission voted 5-0 to issue the report, but Commissioners Andrew Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak dissented in part. Ferguson argued that some of the FTC’s recommended actions for companies exceed agency authority: “We are not moral philosophers, business ethicists, or social commentators. ... [A]s Beltway bureaucrats, our opinion on these matters is probably worth less than the average American’s.” Some of the recommendations are “thinly-veiled threats,” he said. Ferguson cited the recommendation that companies not willfully ignore user age because it won’t “help companies avoid liability under” the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Holyoak said some of the agency’s recommendations could chill online speech. For example, should a company follow recommendations to redesign algorithms for classes the agency deems “protected,” it could undermine the speech rights of certain populations. The report “fails to robustly explore the full consequences of its conclusions and recommendations,” she added. Khan in her statement denied the report “somehow endorses or encourages the platforms to disfavor certain viewpoints.” The report directly states that it doesn’t “address or endorse any attempt to censor or moderate content based on political views,” said Khan.