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1 1 (August 17, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govemob0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ R £ esearch Service Online Age Verification (Part II): Constitutional Background August 17, 2023 This Legal Sidebar is the second installment in a three-part series on efforts to require online services to verify the ages of their users. Part I discussed the common elements of online age verification laws, using enacted state legislation as examples. This part provides an overview of potentially relevant constitutional provisions and how courts have applied these provisions to age verification requirements in the past. Age verification laws may unconstitutionally burden the free speech rights of website operators or users, in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Civil rights groups and trade associations have filed legal challenges to age verification laws in several states. Laws that include an age verification element frequently require age verification in conjunction with other obligations. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code (CAADC) requires that businesses consider the best interests of children when designing products or services that children are likely to access. The other obligations imposed by these laws may pose separate constitutional issues, including potential First Amendment issues. This Sidebar focuses on questions presented by age verification requirements. Free Speech Principles The Free Speech Clause limits the government's ability to enact laws that may discourage expression. The Supreme Court has recognized the vast democratic forums of the internet as fertile grounds for constitutionally protected expression. The Court has specifically pointed to social media as allowing individuals to engage in a wide array of protected First Amendment activity. As discussed in more detail in this CRS In Focus and these essays from the Constitution Annotated, laws that restrict speech based on its content face a higher constitutional burden than content-neutral laws that apply without regard to the subject matter, topic, or viewpoint of that speech. Content-based restrictions on speech must satisfy a legal standard known as strict scrutiny, which requires the government to demonstrate that the law is the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling governmental interest. Content-neutral restrictions on speech are judged under a standard called intermediate scrutiny, which requires that a law not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further important governmental interests. By contrast to content-based restrictions on speech, content-neutral laws may be constitutional even if less speech-restrictive alternatives to the law exist. The requirement that a law Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11021 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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