Even more incredibly, the Eleventh Circuit literally seems to suggest that states can regulate all sorts of speech that might make people more interested in content as “features” rather than speech. CCIA had pointed out that the law is not at all content neutral because it puts rules on internet speech that doesn’t apply to speech in other mediums, and uses “cliffhangers” in books as an example.

In particular, CCIA emphasizes that HB3 prohibits addictive features only on websites, not on other “services that disseminate speech”—like, for instance, “books that end in cliffhangers.”

The Eleventh Circuit dismisses this in a footnote… suggesting that cliffhangers and other tricks to get people to read more in books can be regulated because they’re “features” not “speech.”

Further, the analogy to literary devices that make books more engaging—like cliffhangers, shorter chapters, or serialization—simply reinforces Florida’s contention that it’s not focused on speech and the accompanying ideas, topics, and messages, but rather on features that in and of themselves are agnostic as to content.

I am… flummoxed by this. Cliffhangers are features, not speech? Have any of these judges ever read a book? Short chapters are features not speech? What? Under the logic of this ruling, a state could issue a ban on short chapters and cliffhangers as being too “addictive” and the Eleventh Circuit says that would pass intermediate scrutiny and be just fine.

I am… flummoxed by this. Cliffhangers are features, not speech? Have any of these judges ever read a book? Short chapters are features not speech? What? Under the logic of this ruling, a state could issue a ban on short chapters and cliffhangers as being too “addictive” and the Eleventh Circuit says that would pass intermediate scrutiny and be just fine.

If you want to live in a modern recreation Victorian era England and suffocate to death under a society that was far more prudish and conservative than those who came before or after it, this is a necessary tool! How else can you make people feel righteous in the reality tv of leaning into blaming addicts for the drug crisis?

To be honest I am not sure what the goal is, if this is not the goal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscene_Publications_Act_1857

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscenity_trial_of_Ulysses_in_The_Little_Review

It's a cheap relinquishment of control to authority under the guise of "public good & safety" of youths whose fundamental rights society is carelessly bargaining away.
The goal is less personal responsibility, less autonomy and more control by authority to suppress liberty to access information openly, safely, anonymously.

The article mentions a record of legal decisions I also quoted showing lawmakers had commissioned enough legislative studies to know that more effective & less restrictive legal alternatives exist than these irredeemably flawed laws that obstruct everyone's participation.

Everyone conveniently seems to forget it's just information on screens of devices parents voluntarily give their children.
Control is entirely within grasp of the individuals if realized and supported.
As those justices had argued (before the new ones ruined it), government could facilitate & empower parents to realize their parental discretion & responsibility by legislating programs to educate parents & children & provide them the resources.
Such legislation would empower parents without imposing on everyone else or sacrificing freedoms.
Despite being told that solution, lawmakers never bothered to pass it in the decades since.

Oddly, the children didn't seem to matter anymore until shitheads waited long enough for the Supreme Court (with enough right-wing appointments) to change their tune.