Supreme Court lets Texas restrict minors' access to app stores for the time being

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

July 6, 2026 4:15 PM ET


The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a Texas law prohibiting minors from downloading apps without their parent's consent to go into effect.

Multiple organizations had sued the state, arguing that the law violates children's freedom of speech. But in an unsigned, unexplained order, the high court allowed Texas to enforce the law as lawsuits continue in lower courts.

Texas enacted its App Store Accountability Act in 2025. The law requires app stores to verify all users' ages, and it prevents children under age 18 from downloading most apps without parental consent. Texas told a lower court that legislators enacted the law in order to keep minors from seeing "harmful" material.

Challengers argued that such a broad law is plainly unconstitutional under a variety of Supreme Court precedents, holding that children do have substantial free speech rights.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2026/07/06/nx-s1-5883978/supreme-court-texas-app-store-minors

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Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/070626zr1_dc8f.pdf

[OldBaldy1701E]

1. Ahh, yes. That specific word that explains the specific issues that the law is addressing.

'Harmful'.

A word whose definition shifts like the sands of time whenever some self-righteous know nothing decides that they should force others to believe the same stupid shit that they do, and have decided that anything that they don't like has to be 'harmful'.

You know... things like reading books other than the Bible, allowing women and minorities to be treated like normal human beings, worshiping anything other than the almighty dollar (which they hide by connecting their greed to their church), things like that.

Basically, 'harmful' translates into 'things that we don't like'.

[jgmiller]

2. Texas' argument to the court was smart

The suit claimed this was a 1st ammendment issue but Texas countered saying it applied to all apps and it was a law regulating commerce. States do have the right to put limits on commercial enterprises, where this might have an issue is that since the app store croses statelines it might violate the commerce clause.