The Supreme Court yesterday decided not to intervene in challenges to a Texas app store law, allowing the state to enforce age-verification rules while a lawsuit continues.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Texas App Store Accountability Act in December 2025, finding that it likely violates the First Amendment. US District Judge Robert Pitman’s ruling prevented Texas from enforcing the law when it was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026.
But the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit stayed the injunction on June 4, deciding that there is “no legitimate justification for enjoining enforcement of the entire Act.” A lobby group representing Big Tech companies and an advocacy group for students then asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the injunction.
The Supreme Court denied both requests in a pair of one-sentence orders issued yesterday. “The application to vacate stay presented to Justice [Samuel] Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the court said.
Yesterday’s denial means Pitman’s injunction cannot be enforced while litigation between Texas and groups challenging the law proceeds in the 5th Circuit appeals court, which has scheduled oral arguments for August 4. Although the sides will have a chance to argue for and against the law, the 5th Circuit’s June 4 ruling indicates that Texas has an advantage.
“Texas has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the district court committed several reversible errors,” a three-judge panel said in a unanimous opinion. The 5th Circuit appeals court judges said “the district court likely erred in applying strict scrutiny to significant parts, if not all, of the Act.”
The Supreme Court could still hear a challenge to the law after the 5th Circuit proceedings are over. The Supreme Court already upheld a Texas law requiring age verification on porn sites in June 2025.
Big Tech alleged “broad censorship regime”
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), the tech lobby group challenging Texas, has called the law “a broad censorship regime on the entire universe of mobile apps” and compared it to checking IDs at bookstores and shopping malls.
The Texas App Store Accountability Act requires app stores to determine people’s ages with a “commercially reasonable method of verification” and to impose restrictions on people under 18. Apple and Google announced plans to comply with the law last year but warned that it would harm users’ privacy.
Laws regulating speech face different levels of scrutiny depending on their nature. “When the government favors some speakers over others for their content, the law must be subject to strict scrutiny,” Pitman’s decision said.
Pitman decided to apply strict scrutiny because he said the Texas law is content-based. The law excludes certain types of apps operated by nonprofits, government entities, and emergency services, while seeking “to shield minors from certain speech the State deems objectionable or harmful,” the district judge wrote.
The 5th Circuit said Pitman is wrong. “At most, SB2420 regulates speech that ‘proposes a commercial transaction,’ which is subject to intermediate scrutiny,” the 5th Circuit panel said, adding that “app listings propose commercial transactions, regardless of whether any monetary payment is made.”
Paxton says Texas has duty to protect children
The judges’ panel further said the law would likely survive under intermediate scrutiny because it advances important governmental interests unrelated to speech and does not burden substantially more speech than is necessary to achieve those goals.
“Requiring age verification, parental consent, and app-related content ratings likely directly and materially advances Texas’s substantial interest in protecting children’s data, safety, and privacy in a digital world… That some works protected by the First Amendment may be the object of app downloads or in-app purchases does not categorically exempt them from ordinary regulations governing commercial transactions,” the panel said.
The panel also faulted the district court for issuing a “universal” injunction that prevents the law from being enforced against anyone, rather than a more limited injunction preventing enforcement against the plaintiffs and their members.
After winning in the 5th Circuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that “Texas has not only the right, but the duty, to protect children from the harms of our modern digital space. Parents deserve to know what their children are downloading and to have the ability to stop them from accessing harmful or inappropriate content.”
The CCIA acknowledged in a press release yesterday that “the Supreme Court emergency ruling means that Texas can enforce its app store law” while litigation continues.
“We look forward to an expedited hearing before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in early August to demonstrate how Texas’ App Store Accountability Act violates the First Amendment,” said CCIA CEO Matt Schruers. “People should not have to turn over personal data to access the Internet any more than they should show government identification to enter a bookstore.”
Texas already enforces age law for porn sites
The student group challenging the Texas law is called Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. The law “would render virtually the entire Internet—not to mention the distribution of every book, newspaper, magazine, movie, or record album—‘commercial speech’ the government could more readily ban, restrict, edit, or compel,” the group told the Supreme Court.
The student group pointed out that Texas is already allowed to protect minors under the porn-site age law upheld by the Supreme Court last year. In contrast with the porn-site law, the Texas App Store Accountability Act has a broader effect on protected speech by “directly restricting minors’ access to non-obscene speech,” the group said.
“The Act regulates access to undisputedly protected non-commercial content, including news and educational resources. Because it does so on the basis of content, strict scrutiny applies,” Students Engaged in Advancing Texas said.
While Paxton said he was protecting parents’ rights, the student group argued that the law conflicts with “parents’ rights to supervise their children as they see fit, not as the government tells them they should.” App stores and mobile devices already give parents tools to manage kids’ use of apps, the group said.
Texas told the Supreme Court that its law is similar to laws restricting drivers’ licenses based on age.
“In the same way that the State can deny drivers’ licenses to children under sixteen, even though some fourteen-year-olds may wish to drive to a bookstore and purchase a book, the State can restrict children’s downloads of software applications to mobile devices as a product category, even if some children may wish to use applications to engage in expressive conduct,” Texas said.
