A federal judge blocked Arkansas’s Social Media Safety Act, which required social media companies to limit teens and kids from their platforms.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A federal judge blocked the most recent state law requiring social media companies to limit teens and kids from their platforms.
Judge Timothy Brooks ruled that Act 900, or the Social Media Safety Act, passed last year, violates the Constitution.
In his ruling, Judge Brooks agreed with the state that social media companies do need to do a better job of limiting what kids do and say on their platforms.
But the judge also said that the law and similar laws in other states are too vague and end up restricting free speech.
That ruling echoes a different judge’s ruling on an earlier version of that law.
The judge sided with the tech industry trade group “Net-choice”, writing that the law’s provisions amount to sentencing speech on the Internet to “Death by a thousand cuts.”
Attorney General Tim Griffin has already appealed for a similar ruling.
