Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton: FIRE sues to block Texas’s unconstitutional internet age verification law
Cases
Case Overview
Texas has a new law that attempts to childproof the internet by limiting the free speech rights of adults. Starting September 1, 2024, the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, or “SCOPE Act”, would pressure websites to collect adult Texans’ government IDs or biometric data to check if they are 18 or older before they can view lawful content online. Anyone without a government ID or who doesn’t want to show their papers to access certain websites will effectively be banned from viewing constitutionally protected content.
But burdening adults who want to view online content that is fully legal for adults violates the First Amendment.
While Texas says the law is meant to limit minors’ access to “harmful” content, the Constitution doesn’t kick in when you turn 18 and kids don’t need a parental permission slip to exercise their First Amendment rights.
And the SCOPE Act isn’t actually making anyone safer. It would only make it harder for young people to find help when battling mental illness or sexual abuse.
For example, Plaintiff Brandon Closson is a software engineer who shares his stories and strategies for coping with bipolar disorder, but the SCOPE Act would prevent his younger followers with similar mental health challenges from seeing his helpful information. Another plaintiff, M.F., is a rising high school junior who is concerned that he’d be blocked from websites that could help him prepare for a school debate on legalizing marijuana. And yet another, Plaintiff The Ampersand Group, runs ad campaigns on gun-violence prevention, public health, sex-trafficking awareness and other issues. The SCOPE Act would hinder the Group’s ability to target young people who might benefit from that advocacy the most.
Texas is not the first state to attempt to childproof the internet — and courts have already blocked similar laws in California, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Ohio. And as with Utah’s age-verification bill, which FIRE is also challenging in federal court, the SCOPE Act treats adults like children and erodes children’s First Amendment rights too. But the SCOPE Act combines all the worst aspects of these bills. It has Utah’s age restrictions, the age-appropriate design problems of California, the same ‘harmful to minors’ standard from the earlier Texas law — it’s the Frankenstein’s monster of internet speech control.
On August 16, 2024, FIRE sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in federal court to stop enforcement of the SCOPE Act, representing four plaintiffs from all walks of life whose free-speech rights would be threatened by the Act.
