NEW ORLEANS, La. — Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated NetChoice’s preliminary injunction against Mississippi’s age-verification law. Mississippi’s law conditions its citizens’ access to vast amounts of protected speech online on handing over their sensitive, personal data.
“NetChoice is disappointed in this ruling from the Fifth Circuit, and we will be considering all available options going forward,” said Paul Taske, NetChoice Associate Director of Litigation. “NetChoice will continue to fiercely defend free expression and free enterprise online, and remain confident the law will not stand.”
As NetChoice has seen in other states such as Arkansas and Ohio, when governments mandate age verification and parental consent to access lawful online speech, they violate the Constitution, jeopardize privacy and usurp parental authority. Mississippi’s law also compels websites to block broad swaths of protected speech categories. Not only does the law force websites to act as roving censors, it burdens websites with vague, unclear compliance standards.
Parents and guardians—not politicians—should have authority over their children.
Read the opinion here. Find full case resources for NetChoice v. Fitch here.
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