A Louisiana law that would have required social media platforms to verify the ages of their users has been blocked by a judge. The law, known as the Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation, was passed in 2023 and required Meta, Reddit, Snap, YouTube Discord and others to implement age verification and parental control features.

The ruling came just days before the law, which technically took effect over the summer, would have started to be enforced. In his ruling, Judge John W. deGravelles wrote that the law's "age-verification and parental-consent requirements are both over- and under-inclusive," and that its definition of "social media platform" was "nebulous."

The ruling was a victory for NetChoice, a lobbying group that represents the tech industry and has challenged the growing number of age verification laws around the world. The group had argued that the law was unconstitutional and posed a safety and security risk.

In a statement following the ruling, the group pointed to the "massive privacy risk" posed by the Louisiana law and others like it. "Louisiana’s law would have done more than chill speech," Paul Taske, the co-director of NetChoice’s Litigation Center said. "It would have created a massive privacy risk for Louisianans like those playing out in real time in countries without a First Amendment, like the UK."

In a statement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she would appeal the ruling. “The assault on children by online predators is an all-hands-on-deck problem,” Murrill said. “It’s unfortunate that the court chose to protect huge corporations that facilitate child exploitation over the legislative policy to require simple age verification mechanisms.”

Update, December 16, 11:50AM PT: This story has been updated to add a statement from the Louisiana Attorney General’s office.

Like it or not, the checkmark has become an almost universal symbol on most social platforms, even though its exact meaning can vary significantly between services. Now, Reddit, which historically hasn't cared that much about its users' identity, is joining the club and starting to test verification for public figures on its platform.

The company is beginning "a limited alpha test" of the feature with a small "curated" group of accounts that includes journalists from major media outlets like NBC News and the Boston Globe. Businesses that are already using an "official" badge, which Reddit started testing in 2023, will also now have a grey "verified" checkmark instead of the "official" label. 

Verification has long been a thorny issue for many platforms. For users, it's at times been a source of confusion, especially on sites where verified badges only require a paid subscription. Reddit's approach, at least for now, is closer to how Twitter handled verification prior to Elon Musk's takeover of the company.

The company has handpicked the initial group who will get checkmarks indicating they have verified their identity and seems to be geared around high-visibility accounts. "This feature is designed to help redditors understand who they're engaging with in moments when verification matters, whether it’s an expert or celebrity hosting an AMA, a journalist reporting news, or a brand sharing information," Reddit explains in a blog post. "Our approach to verification is voluntary, opt-in, and explicitly not about status. It’s designed to add clarity for redditors and ease the burden on moderators who often verify users manually." 

For now, Reddit users — even notable ones — won't be able to apply for verification. But the company notes that its intention isn't to limit checkmarks to famous people only. A Reddit spokesperson tells Engadget that "our goal is that anyone who wishes to self-identify will be able to do so in the future." 

The company also notes that verification doesn't come with any exclusive perks, like increased visibility or immunity from the rules of individual subreddits. Reddit requires accounts to be in good standing and already active on the platform in order to be eligible for verification. Accounts that are marked NSFW or that "primarily engage in NSFW-tagged communities" won't be eligible. 

Meta will soon allow Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union to choose to share less data and see less personalized ads on the platform, the European Commission announced. The change will begin to roll out in January, according to the regulator. 

"This is the first time that such a choice is offered on Meta's social networks," the commission said in a statement. "Meta will give users the effective choice between: consenting to share all their data and seeing fully personalised advertising, and opting to share less personal data for an experience with more limited personalised advertising."

The move from Meta comes after the European Commission had fined the company €200 million over its ad-free subscription plans in the EU, which the regulator deemed "consent or pay." Meta began offering ad-free subscriptions to EU users in 2023, and later lowered the price of the plans in response to criticism from the commission. Those plans haven't been very popular, however, with one Meta executive admitting earlier this year that there's been "very little interest" from users. 

In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said that "we acknowledge" the European Commission's statement. "Personalized ads are vital for Europe’s economy — last year, Meta’s ads were linked to €213 billion in economic activity and supported 1.44 million jobs across the EU."

The Oversight Board is getting ready to tackle a new pain point for Facebook and Instagram users. Up to now, users have been able to appeal content moderation decisions related to specific posts to the board, but haven't been able to ask the group to intervene in other situations that affect their accounts. 

That could soon change. The board says that it will weigh in on individual account-level penalties in a pilot next year. The board noted the change in an impact report recapping its five-year history and what lies ahead in the year to come. "In 2026, our scope expands once more as we pilot the ability to review Meta’s decisions removing and impacting accounts, something that has created ongoing frustration for platform users," the report says. 

It's not clear how this process will work, but if the board plans to take on account-level issues like suspensions, it would be a significant expansion of its purview. In an interview with Engadget, board member Paolo Carozza said that Meta is expected to refer a case to the board in January that will deal with an account-level issue. The handling of that case will allow the board to explore how it might take on similar cases in the future. 

"We're really excited to take it on because we think it's an important area that really affects a lot of users and their interests," he told Engadget. "We all know how many people are constantly coming forward complaining about account-level restrictions or blocking or whatever else, and so if we get it right — and it's going to be important to work it out this first pilot — we're really optimistic that it's going to help open up a whole new avenue for us to be helpful to the users of [Meta's] platforms."

Carozza added that there are a number of "technical aspects" and other questions still being worked out between the board and Meta. So for now, it's too soon to say whether there will ever be an official appeals process for suspensions, like there currently is for post removals. But he says Meta is equally invested in the effort. "It's something we've been talking about with Meta for well over a year," he said. "They've been expressing an openness and a willingness to give us access to those kinds of questions."

The Oversight Board's report hints at another way its influence could potentially expand. It notes that the group's work has made it "well-positioned to partner with a range of global tech companies as they navigate issues arising from free speech debates globally." Both Meta and Oversight Board officials have previously floated the idea that "other companies" might want to take advantage of its expertise. 

Up to now, most other platforms have had little incentive to do so. But Carozza says the rise of generative AI has created some new interest from non-Meta affiliated platforms, and that there have been "really preliminary" conversations with other companies. "It feels like quite a different moment now, largely because of generative AI, LLMs, chatbots [and] the way that a variety of retail-level users of these technologies are facing a whole new set of challenges and harms that's attracting a lot of scrutiny," he said. "We have had conversations in recent months with other tech companies in this space about the possibility that the board might be able to contribute helpful services to them to help navigate some of these really thorny questions."