The age verification fallout on free speech is starting

The Supreme Court is asleep at the wheel when it comes to protecting free speech. The latest sign is the decision by the social media app Bluesky to block its service in Mississippi because the decentralized, public benefit corporation can’t afford to require age verification for all its users as required by a clearly unconstitutional state law.

Here’s why it’s the court’s fault. Earlier in August, a coalition of social media platforms known as NetChoice asked the Supreme Court for emergency relief to block the Mississippi law. The justices refused. Maybe some of them believed the law was constitutional, relying on their mistaken decision in June’s Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which upheld an age-verification law in Texas. Or maybe they agreed with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who noted i