{"id":219118,"date":"2025-12-22T16:18:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/?p=219118"},"modified":"2025-12-22T16:18:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:18:23","slug":"lawmakers-renew-push-to-regulate-kids-speech-online-despite-speech-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/lawmakers-renew-push-to-regulate-kids-speech-online-despite-speech-protections","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers Renew Push to Regulate Kids\u2019 Speech Online Despite Speech Protections"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"metadata":[1764,1763,1783,1750,2024,1755,1769,1753,2026,1768],"class_list":["post-219118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","metadata-advocacy-news","metadata-context","metadata-general-commentary","metadata-layout","metadata-length","metadata-narrative-frame","metadata-national-affiliate-staff","metadata-plain-text","metadata-standard","metadata-voice"],"acf":{"header_layout":"standard","header_image":219150,"mobile_header_image":null,"description":"New state and federal bills seek to limit minors\u2019 access to social media, but civil liberties advocates warn that the resulting online censorship threatens constitutional rights without delivering real safety. ","authors":[212948],"components":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"As jazz music, which began in Black communities, spread across the nation in the 1920s, more than 60 cities adopted rules limiting or outright banning it in dancehalls. Clergy and civic reformers <a href=\"https:\/\/syncopatedtimes.com\/america-grapples-with-the-first-decade-of-jazz\/\">claimed<\/a> its rhythms promoted sexual freedom and interracial dancing among the youth.\r\n\r\nJazz was just the beginning. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/files\/legislative\/resources\/education\/comic-books\/all-worksheets.pdf\">In the 1950s<\/a>, the government set up investigations into crime, horror, and excess violence in comic books, calling on the industry to introduce rating systems and encouraging a ban on extreme violence. A few years later, Santa Cruz police shut down a dance for \u201chighly suggestive, stimulating and tantalizing motions.\u201d The kids were dancing to rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, which the city ultimately banned along with \u201cfrenzied forms.\u201d\r\n\r\nMany of these decisions to limit freedom of expression for youth have been reversed as First Amendment protections \u2013 and social norms \u2013 expanded. But in the social media age, government efforts to regulate speech in the name of \u201cprotecting\u201d kids have evolved with the technological moment."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_link","content_link":{"":null,"content_link_field_group":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/privacy-technology","":null,"title_override":"","image_override":219122,"hide_description":false,"description":"The ACLU works to expand the right to privacy, increase the control individuals have over their personal information, and ensure civil liberties...","title":"Privacy & Technology | American Civil Liberties Union","og-title":"Privacy & Technology | American Civil Liberties Union","og-image":219123,"og-site-name":"American Civil Liberties Union"},"card_variant":"horizontal","hide_image":false,"width":"standard","alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"Legislatures around the country are responding to growing concerns about the potential harms of social media for children and teenagers. They\u2019ve introduced bills with a hodgepodge of strategies to target these potential harms, including requiring people to verify their age before using social media, getting verified parental consent for minors, and mandating social media platforms to block material that the government deems harmful for kids. But whether it\u2019s banning jazz or content on social media, broad attempts to regulate speech fail to protect children and violate the First Amendment in the process.\r\n\r\nOne such bill that would violate the First Amendment is the <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/05\/14\/the-kids-online-safety-act-is-back-with-the-potential-to-change-the-internet\/\">Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)<\/a>. Although the House and Senate versions of this bill differ, at their core, both require apps and websites to prevent harm to minors. And while this goal is noble, the requirements will likely cause apps and websites to verify the ages of their users or remove a wide array of content from their platforms. If either version is enacted, the bill could implement some of the most significant legislative changes that the internet has seen in recent years. Similar state laws, including those in Utah and California, have been blocked by the courts.\r\n\r\n\"Safety doesn't need to come at the cost of free speech,\u201d said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU. \u201cThe overbroad language in KOSA and similar legislation risks censoring everything from jokes and hyperbole to useful information about sex ed and suicide prevention. As state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families.\u201d\r\n\r\nKOSA was reintroduced months after the Supreme Court issued a blow to First Amendment rights in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/press-releases\/fsc-paxton-age-verification\">Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton<\/a> this summer. In that case, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas law that requires invasive age verification requirements for adults to access sexual content online. The ACLU and the ACLU of Texas represented the Free Speech Coalition, arguing that age verification requirements burden the First Amendment rights of adults while doing very little to protect children; the requirements would not apply to social media, for example, where minors could still access pornographic content. Adults, meanwhile, would be subject to biometric scans or other invasive methods to verify their age in order to access protected speech online. The Supreme Court, however, upset decades of precedent about online speech and allowed the law to remain in effect."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_link","content_link":{"":null,"content_link_field_group":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/press-releases\/fsc-paxton-age-verification","":null,"title_override":"","image_override":"","hide_description":false,"description":"WASHINGTON \u2013 The Supreme Court issued a blow to freedom of speech and privacy today by upholding Texas legislation that requires invasive age...","title":"ACLU Comment on Supreme Court Decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton | American Civil Liberties Union","og-title":"ACLU Comment on Supreme Court Decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton | American Civil Liberties Union","og-image":214074,"og-site-name":"American Civil Liberties Union"},"card_variant":"horizontal","hide_image":false,"width":"standard","alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"The Paxton decision limits the legality of age verification laws strictly to sexual content. But in practice, laws like KOSA would incentivize age verification for a wide variety of content; otherwise, platforms wouldn\u2019t know who to filter \u201charmful\u201d content for. That could result in, for example, adults undergoing invasive age checks just to watch YouTube videos.\r\n\r\nKOSA is on untested constitutional ground, but the court\u2019s recent willingness to regulate content online is troubling. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/internet\/2024\/12\/12\/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024\/\">More than 60 percent of teens<\/a> use TikTok and Instagram, and 90 percent use YouTube. The Supreme Court has long held that it is particularly important to protect the First Amendment rights of young people and not stifle their intellectual freedoms. Laws that try to restrict content online fly in the face of that.\r\n\r\nAll efforts to regulate social media aren\u2019t inherently harmful or unlawful. For example, consumer privacy legislation that gives users control over what data social media companies gather about users \u2013 especially young users \u2013 could help. But legislation that allows the government to choose what children and teens can see online is not a targeted solution, and it harms all of our First Amendment rights to see, create, and share content online.\r\n\r\nLike jazz \u2013 and comic books and rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and movies \u2013 social media is here to stay. Finding ways to protect children that doesn\u2019t unconstitutionally restrict speech, like parental controls, show promise. Laws like the SCOPE Act and KOSA fall short of this effort. <a href=\"https:\/\/action.aclu.org\/send-message\/censorship-does-not-keep-kids-safe\">The ACLU is working tirelessly<\/a> with our partners to prevent Congress from further eroding our rights."}}],"featured_cases_section":{"enable_featured_cases":false,"title":"Featured Cases","description":"","featured_cases":null},"action":[219144],"issues":[46641,46549],"related_content_cases":"","related_content_documents":"","related_content_publications":"","related_affiliates":"","content_layout":"standard","theme":"light","drupal_nid":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>American Civil Liberties Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"State and federal bills seek to limit minors\u2019 access to social media, but civil liberties advocates warn that the resulting online censorship threatens constitutional rights without delivering real safety.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Online Safety Bills Are Fueling a New Wave of Internet Censorship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"State and federal bills seek to limit minors\u2019 access to social media, but civil liberties advocates warn that the resulting online censorship threatens constitutional rights without delivering real safety.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/lawmakers-renew-push-to-regulate-kids-speech-online-despite-speech-protections\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Civil Liberties Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-22T21:18:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2025\/12\/kids-online-censorship-social.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hibah Ansari\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2025\/12\/kids-online-censorship-social.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/lawmakers-renew-push-to-regulate-kids-speech-online-despite-speech-protections\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/lawmakers-renew-push-to-regulate-kids-speech-online-despite-speech-protections\",\"name\":\"Online Safety Bills Are Fueling a New Wave of Internet Censorship\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-22T21:18:23+00:00\",\"description\":\"State and federal bills seek to limit minors\u2019 access to social media, but civil liberties advocates warn that the resulting online censorship threatens constitutional rights without delivering real safety.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/lawmakers-renew-push-to-regulate-kids-speech-online-despite-speech-protections\"]}],\"author\":{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#\/schema\/person\/hibah-ansari\",\"name\":\"Hibah Ansari\",\"jobTitle\":\"Content Writer & Editor, ACLU\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/bio\/hibah-ansari\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/\",\"name\":\"American Civil Liberties Union\",\"description\":\"The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. 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