Supreme Court weighs children’s free speech amid Texas law

children’s First – The Supreme Court is set to consider whether Texas can bar people under 18 from downloading most apps without a parent’s explicit permission—an approach backed by emergency moves in lower courts and now headed to the justices’ shadow docket.

The question may sound abstract—until you picture a teenager trying to download the app that lets them read the news, learn algebra, or message a friend.

Texas has passed a law that would effectively require a parent’s explicit permission for anyone under 18 to download apps on a “mobile device. ” and it would force app stores such as Apple’s App Store or Google Play to verify the age of every user and identify who the parent or guardian is. The statute is called the “App Store Accountability Act,” or “ASAA.”.

A pair of lawsuits challenging the law—Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton and Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton—arrived before the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. a court described in the material as frequently disregarding Supreme Court decisions its judges do not like. Despite that. the 5th Circuit allowed the law to go into effect in an opinion that does not even mention Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011).

Now, the Supreme Court is taking up the cases in what is described as its “shadow docket,” a mix of emergency motions and other matters the justices decide on on a tight timeframe.

The core issue is whether longstanding First Amendment protections for young people must shrink to manage the online world—one the law treats as too dangerous to leave to parents’ discretion alone.

Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association is central to the challenge. In 2011. the Supreme Court struck down a California law that prevented minors from purchasing “violent video games” without an adult’s permission. The argument against the ASAA is that it is essentially the same idea—preventing young people from downloading any commercially available software without their parent’s permission—scaled up.

The case is part of a larger series of disputes the Supreme Court has been weighing over how the First Amendment applies in the internet age. Several recent cases ask specifically whether children and teenagers should still have First Amendment rights. In that framing. the court is not merely debating a single Texas statute; it is weighing whether freedom of speech has to be treated as obsolete for minors.

The material traces the First Amendment’s uneven enforcement across American history. including a unanimous Supreme Court decision at the end of World War I that upheld a politician and union leader’s ten-year prison sentence for opposing the draft. It also points to a 1951 Supreme Court decision upholding convictions for people whose only crime was trying to organize an unpopular political party. and it notes how federal law such as the Comstock Act targeted sexual speech—including works of art and literature with sex scenes or depictions of the nude human body.

But it argues that the Supreme Court did not begin taking modern First Amendment protections seriously until the latter half of the 20th century, highlighting several landmark decisions: New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), and Miller v. California (1973).

It also describes today’s court as still largely following the libertarian consensus of those earlier cases. pointing to a coalition of three Democratic justices and three Republicans that has kept free speech alive—even amid calls from the court’s right flank to undo progress from the 1960s and ’70s.

That coalition, the material says, has so far held when states try to restrict the rights of adults.

In Moody v. Netchoice (2024). the Supreme Court considered Texas and Florida laws that attempted to seize control of content moderation at major social media platforms like Facebook. Twitter. and YouTube and force them to publish conservative voices against those platforms’ wishes. A 6-3 majority rejected the laws. The material says the ruling reaffirmed an earlier principle from Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974) that the government may not interfere with a newspaper’s “choice of material to go into. ” applying it to more modern forms of communication such as social media. It also lists the group that joined the majority: all three of the Court’s Democrats. plus Republican Chief Justice John Roberts and Republican Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In other words: for adults, the material suggests, free speech protections have remained intact.

For minors, it reads differently.

The Supreme Court’s shifting posture toward children and teenagers is described through multiple cases. In Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025), the Republican justices restricted public school districts’ ability to teach books with LGBTQ themes or characters in their classrooms. In Mirabelli v. Bonta (2026), the Republican justices established that public school teachers have a constitutional obligation to out transgender students to their parents.

In the free speech category. the material says the court has “thus far only” rolled back minors’ rights in a case involving pornography: Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025). There. the court backed a Texas law requiring many porn websites to determine whether a user is over 18 before they could view the content. The material says the decision effectively overruled a 2004 Supreme Court opinion that had struck down a nearly identical law.

It adds that the hardest question in Free Speech Coalition was not whether the government may try to prevent minors from accessing pornography—it may—it was whether technology exists that can age-gate pornographic websites. That sets up a broader question now facing the justices: if age verification is now more feasible. does the court’s willingness to allow restrictions on minors expand accordingly?.

A separate set of facts is presented as another sign. In Netchoice v. Fitch (2025). the Mississippi law at issue sought to bar minors from creating a social media account without first getting their parents’ permission. The material says the justices allowed the law to go into effect in a one-sentence order that did not explain their reasoning.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion saying that. “under this Court’s case law as it currently stands. the Mississippi law is likely unconstitutional. ” but he voted to allow the law to go into effect anyway. The material describes the uncertainty that followed: whether that vote signals a desire to overrule existing precedent or whether it reflects something narrower—yet it points out that letting the law take effect. even temporarily. suggests openness among many justices to state restrictions on minors’ access to online information.

That is where the dispute over the ASAA lands.

The material argues that under the First Amendment framework. restrictions require a very good reason and must not restrict speech more than necessary. Even when the court permits age-gating for pornographic content. it retains a rule that laws restricting free speech cannot burden substantially more speech than necessary.

It contends that neither Mississippi’s social media law nor Texas’s ASAA can survive that test.

For Mississippi’s law. the material says Mississippi justified the restriction by pointing to the tragic death of a 16-year-old boy who died by suicide after someone he met online recorded him engaging in sexual activity and threatened to send the recording to his family. The material’s argument is that while preventing teenage deaths is a worthy goal. the state law burdens far more speech than necessary—citing how it would require parents’ permission not only for obvious risks but also for unlikely-to-be-suicide-triggering activities such as discussing faith in religious forums. petitioning elected representatives on X. sharing vacation photos on Facebook. looking for work around the neighborhood on Nextdoor. or learning how to solve math problems on YouTube.

For Texas’s ASAA. the material says the law would stop minors from accessing apps that share Bible verses. let them read news articles about major political events. or teach school subjects. It also describes how the law’s breadth would prevent a public school student assigned a book by an English teacher from downloading that book online without their parent’s permission.

The material also argues the law would injure parents who want a more permissive approach than Texas permits. It draws a comparison to Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. saying the court struck down California’s law in part because it prohibited young people from buying games “just in case their parents disapprove of that speech. ” while the ASAA requires parents to approve every purchase their children make in an app store—even if parents already approve of what those children are doing and want them to explore different things online.

The material then acknowledges the appeal of what these laws claim to solve. It describes a shared parental concern that parts of the internet can be racist. pornographic. full of belligerence and trolling. and that many apps appear designed to addict users. It says parents need tools to monitor and restrict online activity. but that such tools have historically been voluntary—and that government requirements forcing parents to monitor in a particular way are new.

That leads back to the Supreme Court’s immediate decision on the Texas cases: Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton and Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton.

The material’s final question is blunt: the internet has given multiple generations of children the ability to read books their parents do not like. hear ideas their parents find distasteful. and explore religious beliefs and identities their parents do not share. Under current law. the material says. it is not the government’s business if young people consume that sort of content. Soon. it argues. the Supreme Court will show whether it wants to keep that libertarian approach—or whether it is willing to dramatically narrow First Amendment rights for minors online.

Supreme Court Texas App Store Accountability Act ASAA minors First Amendment free speech children online Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton