“Tennessee is trying to burden the ability of minors and adults to access speech, requiring them to submit to age verification before they can even log into a Facebook account or a YouTube account, said Paul Taske, an attorney representing NetChoice, in an interview with The Center Square. “This is irreconcilable with basic First Amendment law that says the government does not get to place barriers between the people and lawful speech.”
…The law would also expose parents and children to “bad actors” who could steal their identities, according to Taske. “The law requires people to hand over their identification and other forms of documentation not only to prove their age, but in the case of parental consent, to prove their relationship with their minor child and those create severe privacy risks,” Taske said. “By essentially creating and mandating a new repository of sensitive information to be collected and stored and preserved so that the government can go in and check and make sure that this sort of verification that it’s demanding has been done, it really opens a can of worms for bad actors to exploit this information as well.”
…Taske said alternatives exist besides government involvement. One of them is education. “There are so many parental tools available at all layers, whether it is the individual applications themselves, the phones, the computers, the web browsers, the network routers, you can find ways to decide what is the right fit for your family with the technology that already exists,” Taske said.
Lawmakers could also provide more funding to investigate incidents involving bad actors, according to Taske. “The tech companies are doing their part to try and identify bad actors and send them over to the (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) then try to support these investigations to the extent they can,” Taske said. “But the problem often is there is not sufficient funding for the local law enforcement to investigate al of the tips, and then, let alone, prosecute and convict the actual criminal that are making children less safe.”
NetChoice is challenging social media age verification laws in other states, including Nebraska, Arkansas, Utah and California. “We are making our way through the appellate process and we do have a case that we anticipate will go up to the Supreme Court in due courese and that is the case out of Ohio, NetChoice vs. Yost where the 6th Circuit ruled agains us actually a few weeks ago and has since agreed not to issue its decision while we seek review with the Supreme Court,” Taske said.
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