Free speech issues raised as calls come for Pritzker to veto social media safety bill

By Sean Reed | The Center Square
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – Since the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill aiming to increase protections for children online, concerns have been raised by industry groups about the measure’s constitutionality.

One group opposed, NetChoice, urged the governor to veto the legislation when it arrives at his desk – but he already said he intends to sign it.

NetChoice is a trade association representing internet giants like Google, Meta, TikTok and X.

Officially dubbed the “Child Social Media Safety Act,” House Bill 5511 was sponsored by state Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview, and state Sen. Willie Preston, D-Chicago.

In a statement this week, Gong-Gershowitz reiterated she believes the law will allow parents the ability to better control the content shown to their children – which would be done through a one time, device-level age verification.

Amy Bos, the vice president of government affairs for NetChoice, told The Center Square the bill would instead reduce protections for children – and all Illinoisans – on the internet.

“There’s a real irony at its heart. A bill that is written to protect minors requires collecting birth dates, requires collecting age data on every user in Illinois, creating exactly the kind of sensitive database about minors that, quite frankly, predators and hackers would love to get their hands on,” Bos said.

Gong-Gershowitz said before the bill passed the algorithms designed to place content on the feeds of children and teens are highly-addictive.

Bos noted the bill is far from the only one of its kind.

“These are the same provisions that federal courts have blocked in state after state, and candidly NetChoice has challenged in states,” Bos said.

NetChoice recently sent a letter to Gov. J.B. Pritzker which urged him to veto the legislation over what Bos described as First Amendment issues.

“When you’re talking about restrictions on personalized feeds, they’ve been clear the government can’t mandate a chronological feed any more than it could mandate how stories are run in the Chicago Tribune,” Bos said.

Expanding beyond state boundaries, NetChoice has challenged similar laws in numerous states over the past few years on the same grounds.

Bos made a point to say her organization wants to see children have more protection online, but the laws that have popped up across the nation aren’t the solution.

Bos described what direction NetChoice thinks the state could instead take.

“The gap really isn’t in the tools available. I think education and parental empowerment do work, unconstitutional mandates don’t,” Bos said. “Florida and Virginia really kind of led the way on this in their digital literacy tools in their teen online safety courses. And we’ve been promoting that. A privacy law also goes a very long way to robust privacy protections.”

A bill passed by Minnesota’s legislature is similar to the one passed in Springfield, though instead of true age verification, it requires tech companies to utilize existing user data to determine an age estimation.

Bos said there’s an appetite in Congress to pass child-protecting legislation, though what specifics it includes could impact if any sort of federal law will actually come to fruition.

“It’s whether that approach can pass constitutional muster that will be the trick here and that it actually does what it says it’s going to do, protect kids online,” Bos said. “It looks like there may be something moving in the next couple of weeks here on that.”

Multiple attempts to pass a federal Kids Online Safety Act have stalled through multiple years, with a package passing the Senate in 2024, before not being taken up in the House.

All signs point to Pritzker signing the legislation into law soon, which could lead to a challenge in federal court.

NetChoice hasn’t specifically threatened to challenge the Illinois law if signed, but Bos said that the route of litigation is one they take as a last resort, and they prefer open dialogue.