Tech industry trade group NetChoice filed a lawsuit Monday to overturn Maryland’s Age-Appropriate Design Code, which aims to require online platforms to make their products safer for kids and was the second such law passed in the nation.
NetChoice previously sued and successfully blocked portions of California’s first-in-the-nation law, which is the subject of an ongoing court fight.
“Maryland’s Speech Code is Orwellian overreach that closes off the free flow of ideas and threatens user privacy,” Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s director of litigation, said in a statement announcing the Maryland case.
The lawsuit, which was anticipated, comes four months after Maryland’s 2024 law took effect. Known as the Maryland Kids Code, it requires companies to conduct impact assessments and set higher privacy protections for online products likely to be used by minors.
The Kids Code concept is modeled on regulations in the United Kingdom that led social media companies to make changes like disabling autoplay and ceasing overnight notifications to minors.
NetChoice’s 41-page lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, alleges that the Design Code unconstitutionally regulates speech and will result in websites throttling content, disabling core features and require companies to “Face impossible choices between over-restricting speech or risking crippling penalties.” It seeks to have the law declared unlawful, voided for vagueness and preempted by federal law.
NetChoice, whose members include Google, Meta, Snap Inc. and X, has multiple pending lawsuits against states that challenge youth online safety laws passed in recent years. Most of the laws have been blocked by judges.
The litigation has not deterred advocates of the design code model, who have continued to revise the legislation with the goal of making it more resilient to legal challenges. The concept continues to draw bipartisan interest in blue and red states.
Design code bills have been introduced this year in Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Carolina and Vermont, according to the Kids Code Coalition.
The Nebraska bill, which was introduced at the request of Gov. Jim Pillen (R), was scheduled to get a public hearing on Monday.
Supporters of the Maryland law swiftly condemned the lawsuit.
“We want to express our deep outrage that NetChoice and Big Tech are seeking to reverse the Maryland Kids Code Law,” Todd and Mia Minor, executive directors of the Matthew E. Minor Awareness Foundation, said in a statement.
The Minor’s son Matthew died at age 12 in 2019 after he tried a social media “blackout challenge.”
“Despite the bipartisan and unanimous passage of the Maryland Kids Code to address the harms of social media to our kids’ safety and privacy, Big Tech giants like Meta, X, and Google are once again hiding behind their lobbying arm and turning to the courts to achieve what they couldn’t in Annapolis: shielding themselves from any ounce of accountability,” Nicole Gill, executive director and co-founder of Accountable Tech, said in a statement.