With courts striking down age-verification and parental consent laws, states are turning to a new strategy – requiring mental health warning labels on social media platforms. But tech industry groups claim these measures violate the First Amendment.
Gary Kibel, a partner in the Privacy, Technology + Data Security Practice Group at Davis+Gilbert, was quoted in Bloomberg Law discussing the recent wave of legislation that would require social media platforms to display mental health warning labels — and whether such measures could raise First Amendment concerns.
Federal courts have blocked several state-level efforts to restrict teen access or mandate parental consent. However, Gary emphasized that these new laws don’t impose those kinds of barriers.
“Here, this is not prohibiting any service whatsoever, and it’s not really blocking certain users from using services. All it’s requiring is labeling, and that seems to be a much easier thing to pass any potential litigation tests because it doesn’t prevent the company from continuing to market their products and offer them to whomever they’re legally allowed to offer them to,” Gary explains.
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