Federal appeals court clears Ohio to require parental consent for minors on social media

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court ruling that blocked Ohio's Social Media Parental Notification Act, clearing the way for the state to enforce a law requiring parental consent before children under 16 can sign up for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

The Cincinnati-based appeals court ruled 2-1 that the law is constitutional, sending the case back to the district court with instructions to enter judgment in Ohio's favor. The decision reverses a sweeping injunction issued by Chief U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley, who had sided with tech industry group NetChoice and called the law a "breathtakingly blunt instrument."

The appeals court disagreed. Judge Eric Clay, writing for the majority, framed the law as a modest safeguard, not a sweeping speech restriction.

"At bottom, the Act imposes a parental consent requirement. That requirement constitutes a marginal burden that precisely targets the multi-faceted problem that Ohio has identified: Children's unsupervised assent to terms and conditions for use of platforms that take advantage of and harm them."

That language matters. The court acknowledged the law "does impose some burden on speech" but found it narrowly tailored to address what it called a compelling state interest: shielding minors from documented online harms.

What the Ohio law does

Ohio passed the Social Media Parental Notification Act in 2023. It took effect in January 2024. The law requires social media companies, gaming platforms, and internet app companies to verify user age and obtain parental consent before allowing children under 16 to access their services.

The idea is straightforward: parents, not algorithms, should decide whether a 13-year-old gets a TikTok account. Ohio's legislature acted on a growing body of evidence linking youth social media use to anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, body dysmorphia, and bullying. The 6th Circuit's three-judge panel cited those concerns directly, noting that "for young people, who are at a pivotal stage in cognitive development, social media has been linked to issues with sleep, anxiety, body dysmorphia, depression, and bullying."

But the law never got the chance to work. Almost immediately after it took effect, NetChoice, a tech industry advocacy group whose members include Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Snap, and X, filed suit to block it.

The lower court block

Judge Marbley granted NetChoice's request and blocked the law indefinitely. His reasoning leaned heavily on First Amendment grounds, finding that requiring parental consent before minors could access social media platforms violated children's free speech rights.

Marbley's language was pointed. He described the parental consent requirement as foreclosing minors under 16 "from accessing all content on websites that the Act purports to cover, absent affirmative parental consent." He called it a blunt instrument.

That framing treated a parental consent requirement, the same kind of gatekeeping parents exercise over PG-13 movies, school field trips, and medical procedures, as though it were government censorship. NetChoice had already won similar rulings blocking parental consent laws in Arkansas and a children's digital privacy law in California, establishing a pattern in which tech industry lawyers successfully used the First Amendment as a shield against any state-level effort to protect kids online.

The appeals court pushes back

The 6th Circuit rejected that framework. The majority found that NetChoice failed to establish the Ohio law was facially unconstitutional, meaning the challengers could not prove the law was invalid in all its applications, which is the standard for striking down a statute before it even takes effect.

Judge Clay's opinion drew a clear distinction between restricting speech and requiring parental involvement. The law does not ban minors from social media. It requires a parent or guardian to consent. That is a different constitutional question, and the appeals court treated it as one.

The court also weighed the state's interest more seriously than the district court had. Ohio argued, and the 6th Circuit accepted, that children agreeing to complex terms of service without parental oversight is itself the problem the law targets. Platforms design their onboarding to be frictionless. A 12-year-old can tap "I agree" to a contract no adult reads, and the platform gains access to that child's attention, data, and behavioral patterns.

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson praised the ruling as a victory for families, stating it provides parents with necessary tools to monitor and control what their children view online. In a statement reported by Just The News, Wilson said: "This ruling is a win for Ohio families. The court agreed that parents, not social media companies, should get a say in what kids see online."

NetChoice vows to fight on

NetChoice expressed strong opposition to the ruling, arguing it threatens the privacy and constitutional rights of Ohio residents. The group indicated it remains confident the law will ultimately be struck down in future legal proceedings.

That confidence may be tested. The 6th Circuit's decision marks a significant break from the pattern of lower courts reflexively blocking state efforts to regulate children's access to social media. NetChoice has been on a winning streak in district courts around the country. This ruling shows that streak has limits.

The broader legal landscape is shifting. Multiple countries are now moving in the same direction Ohio charted. Australia became the first nation to implement a nationwide under-16 social media ban, though reports suggest younger users have found ways around age-estimation checks. The United Kingdom confirmed plans for its own under-16 ban, expected to take effect in spring 2027. Canada is developing similar restrictions.

A pattern of tech industry resistance

The Ohio case fits a larger story. State legislatures across the country have tried to act where Congress has not. Parents, school administrators, and pediatricians have raised alarms about what social media does to adolescent mental health. Lawmakers in red and blue states alike have responded with legislation.

And at nearly every turn, the tech industry has sued to stop them. NetChoice, funded by some of the largest and most profitable companies on earth, has deployed First Amendment arguments to block laws designed to give parents a say in their own children's online lives. The argument, stripped to its core, is that a corporation's right to serve content to a 14-year-old outweighs a parent's right to say no.

Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, made the point bluntly after the initial district court loss. "Since the federal courts are interpreting federal constitutional law as preventing the state of Ohio from protecting Ohio's children, then Congress needs to act to protect our country's children," DeWine said at the time.

Congress, of course, has not acted. The 6th Circuit has now shown that at least one federal appeals court believes states do not need to wait.

What comes next

The case returns to the district court, where the injunction blocking the law must be lifted under the appeals court's instructions. NetChoice could seek further review, either en banc at the 6th Circuit or at the U.S. Supreme Court. The group's public statements suggest it intends to keep litigating.

Several questions remain unanswered. The identity of the dissenting judge in the 2-1 ruling and the basis for the dissent are not yet clear from available reporting. The specific age-verification mechanisms the law requires platforms to implement, and the penalties for noncompliance, have not been detailed in the coverage so far. Those details will matter as enforcement begins.

But the core question the 6th Circuit answered is the one that counts: Can a state require a parent's permission before a tech company hands a child an account? The answer, for now, is yes.

It says something about the current state of the debate that this needed a federal appeals court to resolve. Parents have always had the right to decide what their children do. It took Big Tech's lawyers to make that controversial.