Another US state may require age verification to access social media

Another US state is making headway toward restricting social media access for kids. This week, a US appeals court ruled that Ohio can enforce a law requiring social media operators to obtain parental consent before allowing children under 16 to access their platforms, overturning a 2024 decision that had blocked the law from going into effect.

Ohio’s Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act was initially signed into law in 2023 and set to go into effect the following year, but was held up by a legal challenge from industry group NetChoice, whose members include Meta and YouTube. Reuters reports that the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has reversed a prior decision in favor of NetChoice, allowing the law to go into effect.

The law doesn’t outright ban kids from social media, but says that social media operators have to obtain “verifiable consent” from the parents of children age 15 and younger in order for those kids to legally agree to social media platforms’ terms of service, barring under-16s who don’t have parental permission.

The text of the law doesn’t specify how platforms are meant to ensure that new users are 16 or older, but it does spell out fines of up to $10,000 per day for non-complying platforms operating within the state of Ohio. Once enforced, the law would effectively mandate age verification at sign-up for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X.

In the decision, US Circuit Judge Eric Clay wrote that parental consent “constitutes ​a marginal burden” that’s ultimately worth it to protect children from the potential harms of social media use. The decision lists “prevalent use of social media among child sexual predators to target minors, deficient data privacy for minor social media users, and exploitative contract terms” among those potential harms.

NetChoice’s response to the decision argues that mass collection of government IDs by digital platforms presents a cybersecurity risk, and that “dictating how citizens communicate” is an infringement on the First Amendment. The organization says it’s confident Ohio’s law “will ultimately be struck down permanently.”

NetChoice’s opinion is informed by industry interests — making it harder to access social media platforms is bad for its members’ businesses. But digital rights org Electronic Frontier Foundation echoes the same concerns about age verification generally, while also pointing out that online ID checks can lock out adults who don’t have the right documents, among other potential pitfalls.

The development in Ohio comes as the internet is becoming increasingly gated worldwide. Other US states including Florida, Louisiana, California, and Texas have also introduced bills that somehow restrict minors’ access to social media, and earlier this week, the UK announced a plan to ban kids under 16 from social media altogether, modeled on an Australian policy that came into effect late last year.