Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce App-Store Age Checks

Senate Bill 2420, signed in 2025, shifts age-assurance obligations onto Apple's and Google's app marketplaces, requiring them to determine a user's age bracket and secure parental approval before minors download or purchase apps. Industry groups argued the law sweeps in vast amounts of protected speech, from news to educational material, far beyond the sexual content at issue in Paxton.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and the group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas sued to stop the law. In December 2025 a federal district court in the Western District of Texas enjoined it, finding it likely unconstitutional as a speech restriction. In June 2026 a Fifth Circuit panel stayed that injunction, letting the statute take effect while the appeal proceeds. The plaintiffs then asked the Supreme Court to step in.

Justice Alito's brief orders refused to vacate the Fifth Circuit's stay, leaving the law operative. The Court did not rule on the merits, and the underlying constitutional challenge continues. Observers read the sequence as a signal that age-verification mandates are migrating "down the stack" from individual sites to platform chokepoints, testing how far Paxton's intermediate-scrutiny framework can be stretched.