If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A federal judge has blocked Virginia’s attempt to limit minors to one hour of social media per day, ruling the law violates the First Amendment. The decision is a significant check on a growing wave of state legislation that treats time spent reading, watching, and communicating online as something the government can ration. Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles issued the preliminary injunction Friday, finding that Virginia “does not have the legal authority to block minors’ access to constitutionally protected speech until their parents give their consent by overriding a government-imposed default limit.” We obtained a copy of the opinion for you here. The ruling halts enforcement of Senate Bill 854, which carried fines of $7,500 per violation and required platforms to use “commercially reasonable methods” to verify user ages. The law’s problem wasn’t just the one-hour cap. It was how the cap worked. The state set the default, and parents could ask to change it. That structure puts the government, not families, in control of baseline access to speech. Parental consent here overrides a government restriction that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Giles found the law over-inclusive in a way that illustrates exactly how blunt these restrictions are. “A minor would be barred from watching an online church service if it exceeded an hour on YouTube,” she wrote, “yet, that same minor is allowed to watch provider-selected religious programming exceeding an hour in length on a streaming platform.” The law doesn’t regulate harm. It regulates platforms, which means it catches protected speech indiscriminately. NetChoice, the trade association whose members include Meta, YouTube, Snap, Reddit, and TikTok, sued to stop the law. In November, NetChoice argued that “Virginia has with one broad stroke restricted access to valuable sources for speaking and listening, learning about current events and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge.” The judge agreed they had standing to pursue a permanent block and found they were likely to succeed on the merits. Virginia’s attorney general is defending the law alongside 29 other states from both parties. A spokesperson said: “We look forward to continuing to enforce laws that empower parents to protect their children from the proven harms that can come through social media.” The new Democratic attorney-general Jay Jones, who took office in January, had announced he intended to fully enforce the law signed by his Republican predecessor, Glenn Youngkin. The ruling won’t settle the broader fight. A similar law in Mississippi was upheld by a different federal judge, meaning the courts are moving in different directions. The Virginia decision is important because it applies First Amendment scrutiny to the mechanism, not just the stated goal. A law that restricts access to church services, news, and online communities to address it is a restriction on speech. Courts have historically treated the government’s ability to limit protected speech as narrow, and Giles found Virginia hadn’t come close to justifying this one. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Judge Blocks Virginia’s One-Hour Social Media Limit for Minors as Unconstitutional appeared first on Reclaim The Net.