This editorial page admires some of the work the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has done across the country to defend speech on college campuses, regardless of politics. It’s important in a time when student mobs will shout down and physically intimidate speakers they deem offensive rather than defeat them in a debate.
But we disagree with FIRE’s attack against a new Texas law meant to install necessary guardrails around children’s social media use. Also suing Texas are the Computer and Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, two trade groups for tech companies.
No surprise there. Even tepid attempts to rein in social media platforms are met with tooth-and-nail resistance from Big Tech.
Texas’ Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment law, however, is substantive. The SCOPE Act is supposed to take effect on Sept. 1, and it would require age verification and parental consent for minors to create social media accounts. That in itself is a significant protection, but more important, the law would force social media companies to allow parents to supervise their children’s accounts.
Further, the SCOPE Act will require companies to limit children’s access to harmful content, such as material that promotes suicide and bullying.
FIRE wants to turn this into a First Amendment fight. In its complaint, filed on behalf of four plaintiffs, the group argues that the law will limit the ability of children and adults to access and disseminate content “through a medium that has become essential to human communication.”
That’s a stretch for tech that hasn’t been around all that long. There was communication, much of it even good and joyful, before social media.
What’s more, the law doesn’t ban children from social media. What it does is give parents more power to supervise their children in the digital realm, just as we expect them to do in the physical world. The idea that this is some inexcusable invasion of privacy strains credulity given what we know about social media companies. Companies like Meta have shown time and time again that their priority is profit, not children’s safety and mental health.
CCIA and NetChoice argue that their members already “engage in effective content moderation.” That they expect a court to believe that is laughable. Outlets including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have published multiple exposés about the ways that algorithms connect children with predators, even as parents use social media companies’ designated tools to report explicit material that is sent to their children. Big Tech has tried to downplay the toxic effects of its algorithms on our children, as if we cannot see the effects with our own eyes.
This isn’t about free speech. It’s about whether social media companies should continue to do what they please with our kids. The federal government may be a pushover, but Texas isn’t.
