United States Residents/Americans!
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction on Florida law HB 3 and Georgia law SB 351.
The court battle over these bills aren't over but opposition groups (like the EFF) are concerned about the precedent (i.e. age-gating becoming a permanent part of everyday life).
The ruling on HB 3 acknowledges free speech issues but treats social media and the internet overall as inherently addictive and a proxy for harm.
The ruling on SB 351 also acknowledges free speech issues but states that NetChoice and EFF "failed to properly show how negative effects outweigh the benefits."
In other words, the judges are imposing a standard that is near impossible to meet for groups (like the EFF) opposing the law. Opposition groups have to have extremely exhaustive documentation of how the law effects people's access to every effected platform.
Yet more cases of the government using flawed, incomplete research and a [potentially deliberate] extreme misunderstanding of how the internet works to justify mass censorship and surveillance.
#Privacy #Censorship #DigitalRights #FreeSpeech #Internet #AgeVerification #AgeGating #SocialMediaBans #SocialMedia #Florida #Georgia #US #UnitedStates