Age assurance legislation for social media gets ping-pong treatment in US courts

Ohio is engaged in a legal back-and-forth over whether youth under 16 years of age should be allowed on social media, and whether social platforms will be required to implement age assurance tools such as biometric age verification or age estimation.

In April, a federal court judge ruled in favor of the big tech lobby group NetChoice, blocking the state’s Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act, which required parental consent for users under 16 to create social media accounts. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley cited the First Amendment and called the law “a breathtakingly blunt instrument for reducing social media’s harm to children.”

“Protecting children’s well-being is a laudable, perhaps even achievable, goal,” Marbley wrote. “But Ohio’s imperative is to achieve this goal through legislation that is constitutional.”

Now, according to a report from Law360, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is appealing the decision with a filing in the Southern District of Ohio aiming for the 6th Circuit court. Yost has previously argued that “even if the act implicates some speech, it remains valid under intermediate scrutiny because it does so only incidentally and in a content-neutral manner – without regard to or preference for any particular topic.”

The argument does not seem to worry NetChoice, which released a statement saying that  its members, which include several of the largest companies in Silicon Valley, were “confident Ohio’s law violating the digital rights of families will continue to be blocked.”

“The government may not impede Ohioans’ ‘unquestionable rights’ to speech and parenting as they see fit by branding an unconstitutional law as a safety measure,” says NetChoice’s director of litigation, Chris Marchese.

Legal battle over age assurance for social media likely coming to Virginia

Virginia is trying the same thing as Ohio: last week, Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a law that requires social media companies to limit kids under 16 to one hour of scrolling per day on their apps and platforms.

Reporting from WUSA9 says SB854, known as the Consumer Data Protection Act, will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026. It requires social media platforms to use “neutral age screen mechanisms” to determine whether a user is younger than 16, and then limit their use accordingly. Neutral age screen mechanisms prompt users to verify their age “in a way that doesn’t encourage young people to enter a fake birth date.”

The time limits on scrolling – a novel feature of the law – could be changed with the verifiable consent of parents or guardians.

Youngkin has spoken of a youth mental health crisis tied to social media, and pushed for even tougher restrictions for users under 18. Democratic senator Schuyler T. VanValkenburg, who introduced the bill in January, calls it “a giant first step toward regulating social media and protecting our kids.”

Based on precedent, NetChoice is likely to call it a violation of the First Amendment, and challenge it in court.

Or, it might leave the job to Chamber of Progress – another Silicon Valley group flogging the First Amendment, and funded by Amazon, Uber, Meta, Google, Apple, X, StubHub and several more who also pay into NetChoice’s coffers.

NetChoice steps up to try and crush App Store Accountability Act

The lobby group representing Meta, Snap, Google, X, YouTube, StubHub, Reddit, Snap, Pinterest, Netflix, Swimply and other tech firms has not limited its pressure to state laws. A post on its website gives a big thumbs-down to a bill introduced in Congress (the so-called App Store Accountability Act) “to force app stores to require minors and adults to submit sensitive personal information to access lawful, protected speech on digital tools.”

The group roots its argument in – you guessed it – the First Amendment. “The bill violates protected First Amendment rights, conditioning Americans’ access to protected speech online on whether they are willing to forfeit sensitive documentation to app stores,” NetChoice says. “Americans will thus lose access to legitimate speech. Meanwhile, minors can simply work around this by visiting browsers and using laptops.”

NetChoice says it wants a federal data privacy standard, and supports the bipartisan congressional Invest in Child Safety Act, which it says will help law enforcement “get predators in prison and off the internet and the streets.” It also calls for better digital safety education in the classroom, and for “working with industry to ensure parents are empowered to understand and use the many tools offered by digital services to control and monitor their children’s digital experience.”

As the challenges pile up, each waving the flag of free speech even as people in the U.S. are imprisoned for publishing op-eds in student newspapers, the pattern is clear: appeal every social media age gate law on First Amendment grounds, while frantically foisting responsibility on police, teachers, parents – or anyone but social media platforms themselves.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  children  |  Netchoice  |  Ohio  |  selfie biometrics  |  social media  |  United States  |  Virginia