The Supreme Court in an unsigned, unexplained order allowed a Texas law that restricts minors' access to mobile app stores to go into effect while related lawsuits continue in lower courts.
Texas enacted the App Store Accountability Act in 2025. The law requires app stores to verify all users' ages and prevents children under age 18 from downloading most apps without parental consent, a measure Texas told a lower court was intended to keep minors from seeing "harmful" material.
Multiple organizations sued the state, arguing the law violates children's freedom of speech and is plainly unconstitutional under a variety of Supreme Court precedents. Texas has said the law regulates only "commercial speech," which it said receives less constitutional protection.
The law contains only a few exceptions for apps made by emergency services and the companies that oversee college entrance exams. Children must get parental approval before downloading other apps, including Instagram, library apps and the apps of news organizations.
A lower court initially blocked the law, writing that it "prohibits minors from participating in the democratic exchange of views online." In June, a panel of the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the law. On Monday, the Supreme Court left the law in place and sent the case back to the lower courts for further litigation.
Utah, Louisiana and Alabama have passed similar measures. The court last year upheld a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify users' ages, and justices have treated children's access to pornography differently than other questions about minors' online access.
The high court's decision does not resolve whether the App Store Accountability Act is constitutional; it allows the law to be enforced while the lawsuits proceed and is at least a tentative signal favoring the state's position.