Ohio can enforce parental consent law for children on social media

Ohio won a major victory in its bid to police children’s use of social media, with a divided federal appeals court allowing the state to enforce a law that requires parental consent before platforms can let users under 16 sign up. The ruling turns Ohio into a national test case in the clash between child-safety regulation and First Amendment protections for online speech and platform design.

The 2-1 decision from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati overturned a lower-court order that had blocked the law at the request of NetChoice, the tech industry group whose members include Meta, TikTok and YouTube. The panel sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley to vacate the injunction that had kept the statute on ice.

Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act is codified at Ohio Revised Code section 1349.09. The General Assembly approved it in July 2023 as part of House Bill 33, and Gov. Mike DeWine signed it on July 5, 2023. State officials said in December 2023 that it was set to take effect on January 15, 2024, but a federal judge blocked it on January 9, 2024 and later permanently enjoined it on April 16, 2025.

Under the law, companies operating websites or services that allow social interaction, profile creation, connection lists or public posts, including direct messages, must verify whether users are at least 16 and obtain parental consent before children under 16 can create accounts. The statute also uses an 11-factor test to decide whether a website is reasonably expected to be accessed by children and therefore falls within the law’s reach.

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson cast the ruling as a victory for parents, saying it was “a win for Ohio families” and that the court agreed parents, not social media companies, should have a say in what children see online. NetChoice said the law burdens protected speech and online privacy rights and has vowed to keep fighting it.

The decision could become a template for other states moving on similar youth-online-safety bills, especially as lawmakers from Ohio to other jurisdictions search for ways to answer concerns about addictive design, harmful content and screen time. The fight is also unfolding alongside parallel efforts overseas, including in Australia, where governments are pushing to restrict children’s access to social platforms.

For families, the ruling means account access for teenagers may increasingly hinge on formal consent checks rather than self-declared ages. For companies, it signals more legal pressure to build age-verification and parental-approval systems into products built for fast, frictionless sign-up. The next courtroom phase will determine whether Ohio’s experiment becomes a durable model or another short-lived model in the long fight over children, screens and constitutional limits.