A US appeals court largely upholds a ruling blocking the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, finding parts of the law likely violate the First Amendment
making decisions based on evidence, not claims.https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Nora Benavidez / @attorneynora : Breaking news: the Ninth Circuit just ruled that CaliforniaAge appropriate Design Code likely facially violates the First Amendment. I am pleased with this victory. @NetChoiceMike Swift / @swiftstories : The Ninth Circuit panel agreed with @NetChoice that it is likely to succeed in showing “CAADCA's requirement that covered businesses opine on and mitigate the risk that children may be exposed to harmful or potentially harmful materials online facially violates the First Krista Chavez / @kristaachavez : This is now the 6th ruling @NetChoice has received in our favor in our lawsuits against government rules restricting access to lawful information online, also known as “age-gating”. NetChoice remains committed to empowering families and fostering a positive online experience Titus Wu / @tituswu100 : Another loss for California's Age Appropriate Design Code. Meanwhile, state lawmakers continue this year to push #socialmedia addiction bills that could also face legal questions @netchoice : BREAKING: Ninth Circuit Rules for NetChoice & UpholdsCalifornians' Rights Online SAN FRANCISCO—Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in NetChoice's favor in our case against California's unconstitutional, so-called “Age Appropriate Design Code,” NetChoice [image] Jennifer Huddleston / @jrhuddles : Courts continue to find that many purported youth online safety proposals raise significant the First Amendment concerns for all users Zamaan Qureshi / @zamaan_qureshi : The Verge got the headline right Daphne Keller / @daphnehk : NetChoice v Bonta, the Cal AADC case, was IMO pretty easy on the substance, and pretty hard in needing to apply the Moody facial/as applied logic to a big sprawling law. The 9th Circuit did a very good job on both. 1/ https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/ ... Daphne Keller / @daphnehk : The easy part was about the law's requirement to assess risks that were *defined by the kinds of content* children might see, and then mitigate those risks. Obviously that is a speech regulation. The panel gave the AG lawyer a hard time for trying to pretend otherwise. 2/ Daphne Keller / @daphnehk : The fact that this mandate was called a “Data Protection Impact Assessment” and talked about both things at once doesn't change this bottom line. As the court notes (later, in tailoring analysis), lawmakers coulda just made a law about data and not pinned it to speech. 3/ [image] Daphne Keller / @daphnehk : And as the court also notes, the fact that this content-based law is unconstitutional tells us zip, zero, nada, zilch, bagel, donut about whether ACTUAL privacy laws are OK. You know, the ones that don't require straight-up speech restrictions. 4/ [image] LinkedIn: Gaia Bernstein : The NInth Circuit just issued the Netchoice v. Bonta opinion today. This was an appeal from the district court, which held … Marc Rotenberg : 📢 Comments on NetChoice v. Bonta, the Case Concerning the California Age Appropriate Design Code Act … See also Mediagazer
The ruling also arrives while the constitutional standard for platform regulation remains unsettled; the Supreme Court had sent the Texas and Florida social-media cases back for a more complete First Amendment analysis. That makes California’s outcome important beyond one statute.
First-order effects
Enforcement of the challenged California requirements remains blocked, relieving covered online businesses of the immediate obligation to make the disputed assessments and content-risk judgments.
NetChoice retains a strong preliminary constitutional position against provisions the court viewed as compelling protected editorial judgments.
Second-order effects
States pursuing child-safety rules face pressure to narrow obligations that require platforms to evaluate or mitigate exposure to harmful material, rather than relying on broad design-code mandates.
Litigation becomes a central implementation risk for age-gating and parental-consent proposals, slowing the conversion of state policy goals into uniform product requirements.
Third-order effects
If courts continue to treat platform content-risk mandates as speech restrictions, child online-safety policy may shift toward more tailored consent and access rules—though those measures have also faced legal challenges.
The larger system may remain state-by-state and court-defined until lawmakers develop approaches that meet First Amendment scrutiny, limiting a single nationwide compliance model.
The trend: US child online-safety regulation is increasingly being shaped by constitutional challenges to how far governments can direct platforms’ design and content-governance choices.
The US Ninth Circuit Appeals Court strikes down the heart of CA's speech and tech suppression law CAADCA, and sends it back to the district court to see if anything else if left to survive. I hope AG RobBonta can better advise the legislature and governor to not pass unconstitu…
California's Age Appropriate Design Code tried to childproof the internet. But today, the Ninth Circuit held the law “deputizes covered businesses into serving as censors for the State.” That's unconstitutional. Read today's ruling here: https://netchoice.org/... Congrats, [image…
California leaders touting today's ruling as largely a win, but the injunction that was partially affirmed guts the CAADC's cornerstone child safety provision and punts the rest back to the lower courts
We're pleased that the Ninth Circuit reversed the majority of the district court's injunction, which blocked California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act from going into effect. https://oag.ca.gov/... [image]
We're going to keep fighting tooth and nail to uphold and further strengthen protections for our kids at every turn. I look forward to seeing a just ruling for them in the lower court.
To nobody's surprise... CA's AADC law fails on 1A grounds. The judges during oral args did not hide their concerns around CA's inability to explain away requiring platforms to determine what “harm” means among other things (see 🧵) [image]
This decision restored the most child-protective parts of the AADC & squarely rejected NetChoice's efforts to invalidate laws to protect kids. This shows the judicial system working the way it's supposed to — making decisions based on evidence, not claims.https://www.washingtonpo…
Breaking news: the Ninth Circuit just ruled that California Age appropriate Design Code likely facially violates the First Amendment. I am pleased with this victory. @NetChoice
The Ninth Circuit panel agreed with @NetChoice that it is likely to succeed in showing “CAADCA's requirement that covered businesses opine on and mitigate the risk that children may be exposed to harmful or potentially harmful materials online facially violates the First
This is now the 6th ruling @NetChoice has received in our favor in our lawsuits against government rules restricting access to lawful information online, also known as “age-gating”. NetChoice remains committed to empowering families and fostering a positive online experience
Another loss for California's Age Appropriate Design Code. Meanwhile, state lawmakers continue this year to push #socialmedia addiction bills that could also face legal questions
BREAKING: Ninth Circuit Rules for NetChoice & Upholds Californians' Rights Online SAN FRANCISCO—Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in NetChoice's favor in our case against California's unconstitutional, so-called “Age Appropriate Design Code,” NetChoice …
NetChoice v Bonta, the Cal AADC case, was IMO pretty easy on the substance, and pretty hard in needing to apply the Moody facial/as applied logic to a big sprawling law. The 9th Circuit did a very good job on both. 1/ https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/ ...
The easy part was about the law's requirement to assess risks that were *defined by the kinds of content* children might see, and then mitigate those risks. Obviously that is a speech regulation. The panel gave the AG lawyer a hard time for trying to pretend otherwise. 2/
The fact that this mandate was called a “Data Protection Impact Assessment” and talked about both things at once doesn't change this bottom line. As the court notes (later, in tailoring analysis), lawmakers coulda just made a law about data and not pinned it to speech. 3/ [image]
And as the court also notes, the fact that this content-based law is unconstitutional tells us zip, zero, nada, zilch, bagel, donut about whether ACTUAL privacy laws are OK. You know, the ones that don't require straight-up speech restrictions. 4/ [image]