Earlier this year, Arkansas passed a new law named Act 689 that was intended to prevent children from falling victim to sex crimes online. The measure would force social media companies to verify the age of their users and block access for minors. But a group representing Facebook and Instagram, along with others, launched a lawsuit to block the law from taking effect. This week a judge found merit in the complaint and issued a temporary restraining order, preventing the law from going into effect. It’s not yet clear if the state’s Attorney General plans on appealing the decision. (Just The News)

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks issued a injunction stopping a law that would have required social media companies to verify the age of its users or face a penalty.

Lawmakers said Act 689 protects children from accessing harmful content on the internet.

“Today the problem is one-third of all sexual crimes from an online situation are stemming from a social media interaction,” said Sen. Tyler Dees, R-Siloam Springs, the lead sponsor of the bill at the bill’s signing ceremony in April.

This type of “age-gating” (as it’s known) for minors is a complicated issue. There are all manner of dangers awaiting minors online (and adults also, honestly) and some of the worst things happen on social media. The sextortion of minors takes place and it’s difficult for law enforcement to identify the perpetrators in many cases.  A new generation of “influencers” can lead kids into all manner of bizarre and sometimes dangerous behavior, or simply indoctrinate them into anything from criminal activity to transgenderism.

But age verification systems are problematic in their own way. You obviously can’t only require proof of age from minors (because how would you know?) so you have to check everyone. And that means that everyone will have to provide some sort of verifiable proof containing private information. The idea that Facebook and Instagram can keep that data secure is laughable, and once your data is out in the wild, you already know all of the problems that can follow.

That was the basic premise behind the objections raised by NetChoice, the group representing the plaintiffs. They claimed not only data security issues, but an abridgment of First Amendment rights by blocking access to online communication channels unless users expose their data. I’m not sure how strong the First Amendment angle is here, but the data security issues are particularly problematic.

The real responsibility for keeping children safe online should fall to the parents or guardians, of course. Limiting and monitoring children’s screen time is very important, though I freely admit it can be challenging to do. In the early days of the internet, it was vastly more difficult because most of the kids who were learning how to get online knew vastly more about it than their parents. These days, however, it should be getting at least a little bit easier. Parents of younger children today are far more likely to have had their own experiences online and know their way around.

There are some simpler forms of age verification available, but they all risk some level of exposure. Some sites employ systems that ask for a user’s name, birthday, and address. They then match those details against online databases including electoral registries and credit agency records. But even that setup is far from foolproof or secure. A child could simply enter the information of one of their parents, which they would already know. And if that information is exposed, it’s not as bad as revealing your social security number, but it’s still enough to cause some damage in the wrong hands.

We’ll need to wait and see whether this ruling is appealed or not and how successful the challenge turns out to be if it is. This seems like a well-intentioned effort on the part of Arkansas, but the proposed solution may be too problematic for the courts to allow it.