SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Another lawsuit was filed last week against Utah’s soon-to-be-enacted social media restrictions, which would mandate that platforms like TikTok and Instagram require teens to get parental consent to use the apps and all users to undergo age verification.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed a lawsuit Friday in federal court on behalf of several Utahns, including one teenager, claiming the new legislation — the first of its kind in the nation — violates the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause.

“Throughout history, censorship has always been the answer to moral panics inspired by new technologies,” said FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere, in a statement. “But censorship is the wrong response to concerns presented by new cultural phenomena, whether the printing press in the 1400s, comic books in the ‘50s, video games in the ‘90s, or social media today.”

In March of last year, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, signed two bills into law designed to protect young people from addictive algorithms of social media platforms. Those behind the legislation said they were motivated out of concern over increased mental health issues in teenagers.

The laws, known as the Social Media Regulation Act, have several restrictions for social media companies who wish to operate in Utah, including requiring children to get parental consent to use the apps, requiring all users to undergo age verification, and limiting how minors can use direct messaging.

Parents must also have access to their children’s accounts, and can more easily sue social media companies should they claim their children suffered harm. The bills are set to go into effect on March 1.

The lawsuit filed last week makes several arguments against the Utah legislation, calling it “well-intentioned but misguided.”

It requests a federal judge to stop Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Utah Department of Commerce Director Katie Hass from taking action to enforce the Social Media Regulation Act.

“The Acts’s provisions, both as a whole and in their individual manifestations, impose significant restrictions that cannot survive any level of First Amendment scrutiny,” the lawsuit states.

Hannah Paisley Zoulek, one of the plaintiffs, is a queer-identifying high school student in Utah. They are concerned these new laws could infringe on teens’ speech and ability to connect with other communities online.

“Growing up already isn’t easy, and the government making it harder to talk with people who have similar experiences to mine just makes it even more difficult,” they said in a news release.

This lawsuit follows another one filed in December by NetChoice, a trade group representing TikTok, Meta, Google and other major tech companies.

This lawsuit also claimed the Utah legislation violates the First Amendment, chiefly by restricting access for both minors and adults to a variety of websites, the Associated Press reported. The NetChoice lawsuit requested that a judge halt the laws from taking effect while the case moves through the legal system.