SCOTUS lets Texas enforce app store law that Big Tech calls "censorship regime"

The Texas App Store Accountability Act requires app stores to determine people’s ages with a “commercially reasonable method of verification” and to impose restrictions on people under 18. Apple and Google announced plans to comply with the law last year but warned that it would harm users’ privacy. Laws regulating speech face different levels of scrutiny depending on their nature. “When the government favors some speakers over others for their content, the law must be subject to strict scrutiny,” Pitman’s decision said. Pitman decided to apply strict scrutiny because he said the Texas law is content-based. The law excludes certain types of apps operated by nonprofits, government entities, and emergency services, while seeking “to shield minors from certain speech the State deems objectionable or harmful,” the district judge wrote. The 5th Circuit said Pitman is wrong. “At most, SB2420 regulates speech that ‘proposes a commercial transaction,’ which is subject to intermediate scrutiny,” the 5th Circuit panel said, adding that “app listings propose commercial transactions, regardless of whether any monetary payment is made.” The CCIA acknowledged in a press release yesterday that “the Supreme Court emergency ruling means that Texas can enforce its app store law” while litigation continues. “We look forward to an expedited hearing before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in early August to demonstrate how Texas’ App Store Accountability Act violates the First Amendment,” said CCIA CEO Matt Schruers. “People should not have to turn over personal data to access the Internet any more than they should show government identification to enter a bookstore.” The student group challenging the Texas law is called Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. The law “would render virtually the entire Internet—not to mention the distribution of every book, newspaper, magazine, movie, or record album—‘commercial speech’ the government could more readily ban, restrict, edit, or compel,” the group told the Supreme Court. The student group pointed out that Texas is already allowed to protect minors under the porn-site age law upheld by the Supreme Court last year. In contrast with the porn-site law, the Texas App Store Accountability Act has a broader effect on protected speech by “directly restricting minors’ access to non-obscene speech,” the group said. “The Act regulates access to undisputedly protected non-commercial content, including news and educational resources. Because it does so on the basis of content, strict scrutiny applies,” Students Engaged in Advancing Texas said. While Paxton said he was protecting parents’ rights, the student group argued that the law conflicts with “parents’ rights to supervise their children as they see fit, not as the government tells them they should.” App stores and mobile devices already give parents tools to manage kids’ use of apps, the group said. Texas told the Supreme Court that its law is similar to laws restricting drivers’ licenses based on age. “In the same way that the State can deny drivers’ licenses to children under sixteen, even though some fourteen-year-olds may wish to drive to a bookstore and purchase a book, the State can restrict children’s downloads of software applications to mobile devices as a product category, even if some children may wish to use applications to engage in expressive conduct,” Texas said.