On Monday, a federal judge blocked Ohio's law requiring parents to sign off on their child's new social media accounts, siding with a group representing several social media sites that has filed a lawsuit against the state and argues the law is unconstitutional.
In a ruling, United States District Court Judge Algenon Marbley with the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, sided with NetChoice, the internet trade organization representing sites including Google, Meta, X, formerly Twitter, and others, and granted a preliminary injunction to prevent Ohio from enforcing the law, which was supposed to take effect Jan. 15, 2024.
Under the law, social media companies would have to get “verifiable” consent from a parent before allowing minors younger than 16 from using the service. The tech companies complain the measure’s provisions are too ambiguous. Ditto its carve-outs for e-commerce and news sites. Worse, they argue, enforcement would likely impose age verification for all users, which courts have repeatedly rejected as a prerequisite for accessing speech.
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The NetChoice lawsuit asks the court to declare the statute unconstitutional and to block it from taking effect while the case plays out.
The ruling filed Monday grants NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
In its suit against the law, NetChoice stated that it would violate the First Amendment rights of both the companies it represents and the minor users of the platforms because of how vaguely the law is worded, and because it imposes impermissible speaker and contest-based restrictions on protected speech, and because it imposes overinclusive and underinclusive bans on minors’ access to protected speech.=
In his decision, Marbley said NetChoice is likely to prevail on its First Amendment speech freedom arguments.
“There is no indication that the State disfavors the sort of content designed to appeal to children — cartoons and the like,” he wrote. “‘Websites that children might access’ is not a topic or subject matter. Indeed, even though covered platforms contain some subject matter likely to appeal to children, most also contain subject matter ‘as diverse as human thought.’”
The law would require companies to get parental permission for social media and gaming apps and to provide their privacy guidelines so families know what content would be censored or moderated on their child's profile.
The Social Media Parental Notification Act was part of an $86.1 billion state budget bill that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law in July. The administration pushed the measure as a way to protect children’s mental health, with Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted saying at the time that social media was “intentionally addictive” and harmful to kids.
Following Monday's decision, Husted said the state was evaluating its next steps.
“It’s disappointing, but it will not deter us from our responsibility to protect children from exploitative social media algorithms that are causing a crisis of depression, suicide, bullying, and sexual exploitation among our children," he said in a statement. “These companies could solve this problem without passing new laws, but they refuse to do so. Because social media companies will not be responsible, we must hold them accountable.”
But Marbley pointed out that the Ohio law is not structured to prevent children from exploring the internet once they’ve received parental permission, and it does not seem to attempt to limit individual social media features — such as “infinite scrolling” — that have been cited as the most detrimental.
“The approach is an untargeted one, as parents must only give one-time approval for the creation of an account, and parents and platforms are otherwise not required to protect against any of the specific dangers that social media might pose,” he said.
The judge also called it “eyebrow-raising” that the act makes an exception for children to access “established” and “widely recognized” news media outlets without defining what that means, and prohibits kids from accessing product reviews but not reviews for services or art.
NetChoice filed suit in January against state Attorney General Dave Yost in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Marbley issued a temporary injunction shortly after.
Read the full court order here.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
