World Courant
A federal decide has dominated that social media corporations can’t be required to dam sure forms of content material from teenagers. The ruling will forestall some facets of a controversial social media legislation in Texas from going into impact.
The ruling got here as the results of tech trade teams’ problem to the Securing Youngsters On-line Via Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act, a Texas legislation that imposes age verification necessities and different insurance policies for the way social media corporations deal with teenage customers. However, as The Verge factors out, the measure additionally requires corporations to “forestall the identified minor’s publicity to dangerous materials,” together with content material that “glorifies” self-harm and substance abuse.
It is that latter requirement that was struck down, with the decide saying that “a state can’t choose and select which classes of protected speech it needs to dam youngsters from discussing on-line.” The decide additionally criticized the language used within the legislation, writing in his determination that phrases like “glorifying” and “selling” are “politically charged” and “undefined.”
On the identical time, the decide left different facets of the legislation, together with age verification necessities and bans on focused promoting to minors, in place. NetChoice, the tech trade group that challenged the legislation, has argued that measures just like the Scope Act require main tech corporations to extend the quantity of information collected from minors.
The Texas legislation, initially handed final yr, is one in all many throughout the nation making an attempt to alter how social media platforms take care of underage customers. New York just lately handed two legal guidelines proscribing social media corporations’ potential to gather knowledge on teenage customers, and requiring parental consent for youthful customers to entry “addictive” options like algorithmic feeds. California lawmakers additionally just lately handed a measure, which has but to be signed into legislation by the governor, that requires social media corporations to restrict notifications to minors and limit them from “addictive” algorithms.
Social media corporations cannot be pressured to dam teenagers from seeing ‘dangerous’ content material, decide guidelines
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