The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should grant TikTok's request for a full-court review of a three-judge panel’s decision that Section 230 doesn’t protect its algorithmic recommendations (see 2408280014) (docket 22-3061), tech associations said in an amicus brief filed Tuesday. Signees included CTA, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, NetChoice, TechNet and the Software & Information Industry Association. Chamber of Progress, Engine and the Interactive Advertising Bureau also signed. TechFreedom signed a separate amicus brief supporting TikTok. The three-judge panel remanded a district court decision dismissing a lawsuit from the mother of a 10-year-old TikTok user who unintentionally hanged herself after watching a “Blackout Challenge” video on the platform. The platform can’t claim Communications Decency Act Section 230 immunity from liability when its content harms users, the panel found. That decision threatens the internet “as we know it,” the associations said in their filing: It jeopardizes platforms’ ability to “disseminate user-created speech and the public’s ability to communication online.” TechFreedom Appellate Litigation Director Corbin Barthold said the panel wrongly concluded that “because recommendations are a website’s own First Amendment-protected expression, they fall outside Section 230’s liability shield. A website’s decision simply to host a third party’s speech at all is also First Amendment-protected expression. By the panel’s misguided logic, Section 230’s key provision -- Section 230(c)(1) -- is a nullity; it protects nothing.”

Rules for implementation of Florida’s social media age-verification law state that a "commercial entity willfully disregards a person’s age if it, based on the facts or circumstance readily available to the respondent, should reasonably have been aroused to question whether the person was a child and thereafter failed to perform reasonable age verification.” The Florida attorney general’s office on Monday sent us rules that it adopted for implementing the state law (HB-3) taking effect Jan. 1. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the law in March after lawmakers approved a revised proposal that includes parental consent after he vetoed a proposal banning kids younger than 16 from having social media accounts (see 2403080063). “Willful disregard of a person’s age constitutes a knowing or intentional violation” of Florida’s social media age-restriction law, the AG rules say. “The department will not find willful disregard of a person’s age has occurred if a commercial entity establishes it has utilized a reasonable age verification method with respect to all who access the social media platform and that reasonable age verification method determined that the person was not a child unless the social media platform later obtained actual knowledge that the person was a minor and failed to act.” The rules define a “commercially reasonable method of age verification” as “a method of verifying age that is regularly used by the government or businesses for the purpose of age and identity verification." Meanwhile, “reasonable parental verification” is defined as “any method that is reasonably calculated at determining that a person is a parent of a child that also verifies the age and identity of that parent by commercially reasonable means.” That might include asking the child for a parent’s name, address, phone number and email address, contacting that person and “confirming that the parent is the child’s parent by obtaining documents or information sufficient to evidence that relationship,” and “utilizing any commercially reasonable method regularly used by the government or business to verify that parent’s identity and age.” Under another rule, social media platforms must permanently delete all personal information related to an account within 14 business days of the account's termination.

Texas sued TikTok for allegedly violating the state’s new social media parental-consent law. The social media platform shared minors’ personal data in violation of the state’s social media age-restriction law (HB-18), Texas said in a complaint at the Texas District Court in Galveston County (case 24-CV-1763). “Texas law requires social media companies to take steps to protect kids online and requires them to provide parents with tools to do the same,” said Ken Paxton (R), the Texas attorney general. The complaint claims that TikTok failed to provide those tools and develop a commercially reasonable parental-consent mechanism. In addition, Texas alleged that TikTok shared and disclosed minors’ personal identifying information without parental consent. Paxton sought injunctive relief and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation. A TikTok spokesperson said, “We strongly disagree with these allegations and, in fact, we offer robust safeguards for teens and parents, including Family Pairing, all of which are publicly available. We stand by the protections we provide families.” The lawsuit comes roughly one month after the U.S. District Court of Western Texas granted a preliminary injunction (see 2409030039) against the 2024 law in a case that tech industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) brought. However, TikTok is not a member of NetChoice or CCIA. “The injunction granted by Judge [Robert] Pitman of the Western District of Texas bars the state from enforcing particular provisions of [HB-18] only as to CCIA, NetChoice, and their members,” said Stephanie Joyce, CCIA chief of staff.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should affirm a lower court’s decision that blocks Mississippi’s social media age-verification law because it violates the First Amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Chamber of Progress and other groups argued in filings Thursday (docket 24-60341). The amici filed in support of NetChoice, which won a preliminary injunction against the law from the U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi on July 1 (see 2407160038). The ACLU and EFF filed a joint brief, arguing that online age verification blocks access to protected speech for millions of adults who lack proof of identification. Users have a right to be anonymous online, and age-verification requirements force people to put sensitive data at risk of inadvertent disclosure in data breaches, they said. Chamber of Progress filed with LGBT Tech, the Woodhull Freedom Foundation and the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. Minors don’t “shed their First Amendment rights at the gateway to the internet,” they said: Their participation in the “marketplace of ideas,” which includes unpopular ideas, is “essential to a functioning democracy.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression argued that legal precedent requires government to show there isn’t a “less restrictive alternative” to achieving its objective, and Mississippi hasn’t shown the new law is the “least restrictive means of addressing concerns about young peoples’ use of social media.”

Conservatives were more likely than liberals to be suspended on Twitter during the 2020 election, but they were also more likely to share lower-quality news articles on the platform, researchers said in a study released Wednesday. Scholars from Oxford University, MIT, Yale and Cornell examined accounts sharing hashtags supporting then-Republican nominee Donald Trump and then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Accounts sharing #Trump2020 during the election were 4.4 times “more likely to have been subsequently suspended” than those that shared #VoteBidenHarris2020, the study said. About 4.5% of users who shared Biden hashtags “had been suspended as of July 2021” compared to 19.6% of users who shared Trump hashtags, researchers said. Journalists and fact-checkers rated the quality of news websites for the study, ranging from mainstream and hyper-partisan to “fake news.” Conservative social media shares included content from sites like Breitbart, Daily Caller, Daily Wire, InfoWars, NewsMax and Red State. Statistics for users using a Trump hashtag showed 50,973 shares from Fox News, 47,841 shares from Breitbart, 38,692 shares from New York Post, 10,719 shares from Daily Mail and 9,968 shares from Daily Caller. Breitbart and Daily Caller were identified as hyper-partisan outlets in the study. Statistics for Biden supporters showed 33,604 shares from The New York Times, 28,488 shares from CNN, 20,759 shares from Raw Story, 6,639 shares from CBS News and 5,715 shares from USA Today. Raw Story was labeled as hyper-partisan in the study.

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.