Supreme Court declines to block Mississippi social media age

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block Mississippi from enforcing its social media age-verification law against nine major platforms, for now.

In an emergency ruling, the justices denied an internet trade group NetChoice’s request to reinstate a lower court’s order protecting social media giants like Meta, X and YouTube from the new requirements.

The Supreme Court did not explain its order or disclose the vote count, as is typical in emergency cases.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, however, wrote a solo opinion cautioning that NetChoice is likely to ultimately succeed on its First Amendment claims even though he was siding against the group at this stage.

“In short, under this Court’s case law as it currently stands, the Mississippi law is likely unconstitutional,” Kavanaugh’s brief