Permanent injunction entered March 31, 2025. Arkansas appealed; the Eighth Circuit appeal is pending. A permanent injunction is not the same as an appeal-proof final outcome.
Arkansas Social Media Safety Act (SB 396)
BadDefeatedArkansas SB 396 (Act 689)
Arkansas, United StatesHigh threat
Arkansas, United StatesHigh threatPermanently enjoined March 2025; state appeal pending
Arkansas's social media age-verification law, struck down in full as unconstitutional. The state came back with a rewrite.
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Take action on this issueWhat it does
The Social Media Safety Act made social media companies verify the age of every user and get parental consent for minors. A federal court held it violated the First Amendment in every application and permanently blocked it.
What’s at stake
This is the clearest court win against age verification so far: struck down for all users, not just narrowed. It shows these laws can be beaten in court, and other challenges cite it.
Our take
A rare clean loss for the age-checking crowd. A federal judge threw the law out entirely on free-speech grounds. Arkansas did not give up, though, and passed a rewritten version now facing the same fight, so this moved to round two.
Votes
- House — Final passage (82 to 10) · April 5, 2023
- Senate — Final passage (21 to 3) · April 6, 2023
Legal challenges
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