This year, NetChoice continued our fight to protect free expression and free enterprise by challenging unconstitutional laws in court. States unleashed a flood of laws aimed at restricting access to lawful speech and interfering with free enterprise. In response, NetChoice filed 10 new cases. Along the way, we won significant victories, made progress on dozens of existing challenges, defended hard-won precedents and challenged government overreach to protect the rights of all internet users.
2025 was a banner year for NetChoice. We secured four permanent injunctions across different issue areas, striking down age verification laws, blocking government censorship of political speech, and protecting parental authority from government control.
NetChoice Secured Four Decisive Victories
Defending access to lawful speech online was a major theme again this year. In years past, NetChoice secured initial victories against these restrictions, but 2025 saw several decisive, permanent victories on this front.
First up: Arkansas. On March 31, a federal court permanently blocked Arkansas’ age-verification law in NetChoice v. Griffin (2023). Act 689 would have required leading websites to verify users’ identities and ages before allowing users to access digital communication services. Rather than educating families about existing tools at their disposal to manage how their children use technology, the state took a hatchet to online speech, chilling lawful expression for adults and minors alike. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas struck the law down as unconstitutional, finding that it was a content-based restriction on speech that failed strict scrutiny and was not narrowly tailored to protect children.
Ohio was the next domino to fall. On April 16, another federal court struck down Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act in NetChoice v. Yost. Like Arkansas, Ohio’s law placed unconstitutional hurdles in the way of accessing lawful speech. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio declared the law unconstitutional, holding that the First Amendment protects everyone’s right to speak and access information online, including minors. The court emphasized that while protecting children’s well-being is laudable, the government must pursue that goal through constitutional means and may not infringe on free speech or parental rights under the guise of safety.
Louisiana rounds out NetChoice’s trio of wins against access-restriction laws. On December 15, a federal court permanently blocked Louisiana’s sweeping speech restrictions and delivered a decisive win for free expression in NetChoice v. Murrill. Louisiana’s SB 162 was riddled with First Amendment problems. Like Ohio and Arkansas before it, Louisiana would have imposed draconian age-verification restrictions to access protected speech online, and minors would have been presumptively blocked from accessing social media at all. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana rejected the law outright, holding that the state cannot condition access to protected speech on the surrender of private information. The court was unequivocal: the government has no “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed” and cannot protect minors by “foreclos[ing] access to social media altogether” or by usurping parental authority.
Murrill was the first of our cases to permanently block restrictions on advertising to minors. Blanket advertising restrictions, as the court explained, interfere with the websites’ editorial discretion to select what material to include in its pages. Further, Louisiana’s advertising restriction failed to advance any state interest because Louisiana could not identify any ads run by any social media website that would have been harmful to minors. Finally, Murrill also struck down Louisiana’s restriction on messaging with minors as burdening “if not thwarting” both “innocuous” and “productive” conversations. This ruling built on NetChoice’s past successes and sent a clear message to policymakers nationwide: good intentions do not override the Constitution, and efforts to replace parental judgment with government control will continue to be struck down.
But one victory was not like the others. NetChoice saw lasting success against unconstitutional censorship efforts, too. In Maryland’s digital advertising tax law, policymakers tried to avoid political accountability by prohibiting companies from explaining the real reason for higher prices, banning any communication that identified the tax as the cause. But in August, the Fourth Circuit released a strong decision in Chamber of Commerce, NetChoice & CCIA v. Lierman, confirming NetChoice’s position. Maryland’s attempt to silence criticism of its digital advertising tax violated the First Amendment. And in October, the district court made it official: the government cannot muzzle dissent or suppress criticism of its own policies.
NetChoice Files 10 New Cases, Racks up Early Wins
Beyond these landmark victories, NetChoice filed new lawsuits in 2025 challenging unconstitutional laws across the country: in Maryland, Florida, Louisiana, California, Arkansas, Minnesota, Colorado, Virginia, and Georgia. We also joined TechNet in a federal challenge against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s unlawful attempt to seize sweeping authority over digital payments. These cases targeted a recurring set of government overreaches: attempts to censor lawful speech online, force people to surrender sensitive personal information to access information, pressure or coerce private companies’ editorial decisions, expand agency authority and stymie innovation and replace parental judgment with state control.
Several of this year’s cases produced early court wins that stopped unconstitutional laws before they could take effect. Courts granted NetChoice’s requests for preliminary injunctions against California’s online speech code for the third time, blocked Georgia’s ID-for-the-internet law, stopped Arkansas from enforcing new speech restrictions on personalized feeds, and prevented Colorado from compelling websites to display state-mandated warning labels. And California’s new online marketplace regulation was stopped in its tracks. Courts also rejected early attempts to dismiss key cases in Florida and Maryland, allowing our challenges to move forward.
A Few Setbacks, But the Fight Continues
Not every court got it right this year. In several high-profile cases, appellate courts allowed unconstitutional laws to move forward—at least temporarily. The Ninth Circuit declined to fully block California’s SB 976, allowing the state to enforce restrictions on personalized feeds while shutting down only the law’s restriction against showing “like” counts and denying our request for rehearing en banc. The Eleventh Circuit stayed the district court’s injunction, permitting enforcement of Florida’s ID-for-Speech law while our appeal proceeds. And the Fifth Circuit allowed Mississippi’s internet ID mandate to take effect despite serious constitutional concerns, forcing us to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
Those outcomes were disappointing, but the constitutional fight is far from over. When the Supreme Court declined to intervene in our Mississippi case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh made clear that NetChoice has a strong First Amendment argument against the law. As he wrote: “To be clear, NetChoice has, in my view, demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits—namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely violate its members’ First Amendment rights under this Court’s precedents. In short, under this Court’s case law as it currently stands, the Mississippi law is likely unconstitutional.”
NetChoice Will Continue the Fight Against Unconstitutional Restrictions on Speech in 2026
This year, courts across the country recognized that online services offer vast amounts of protected speech, that forcing people to surrender sensitive personal information as a condition of access is unconstitutional and that governments cannot sidestep the First Amendment by invoking “safety” or “accountability.” Four permanent injunctions, multiple preliminary injunctions and decisive rulings on the merits have stopped harmful laws from taking effect and prevented real-world damage.
NetChoice isn’t slowing down. Dozens of active cases remain before district and appellate courts nationwide, with core questions about free speech, privacy, parental authority and government overreach squarely teed up for resolution. We’re appealing unfavorable decisions, defending our wins and preparing for new challenges as legislatures continue to test constitutional limits in the digital age. When states go rogue, we’ll be there—in court, forcefully and deliberately protecting free expression and free enterprise—the building blocks of a free society—and defending the rights of millions of Americans against government overreach.
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