On August 14, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request made by internet trade association NetChoice LLC to temporarily block enforcement of Mississippi’s H.B. 1126, a state law that attempts to protect children from “online harmful material” by requiring social media platforms to, among other things, verify a user’s age and obtain parental consent before allowing a minor to create a social media account. Although argued that the statute violated the First Amendment rights of social media companies, the Supreme Court denied the application to enjoin the enforcement of the law while the case moves through the legal system, holding that NetChoice had not “sufficiently demonstrated that the balance of harms and equities favors it at this time.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the decision but acknowledged that the trade association would likely succeed on the merits of its First Amendment challenge. According to Justice Kavanaugh, the Mississippi law was “likely unconstitutional” based on current case law, but he agreed that NetChoice had failed to sufficiently demonstrate that it was entitled to emergency relief.