Ohio wins ruling allowing parental consent law for social media users under 16

A federal appeals court gave Ohio a major victory on Thursday, allowing the state to enforce a law that would require social media and online gaming platforms to obtain verifiable parental consent before children under 16 can use them. The ruling revived one of the country’s most closely watched child-safety laws and sharpened a national debate over whether platforms can be forced to verify age without running afoul of the Constitution.

The 2-1 panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed a lower court order that had blocked the statute. Judge Eric Clay wrote the lead opinion, Judge Alice Batchelder concurred in the judgment and Judge John K. Bush Ritz dissented in NetChoice, LLC v. Yost, No. 25-3371. The court said Ohio had shown evidence linking social media use by young people to poor mental health, eating disorders, academic decline, child sexual predation, weak privacy protections and exploitative contract terms.

Ohio’s law, formally known as the Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act and codified at Ohio Revised Code Section 1349.09, was passed in 2023 as part of the state budget bill and signed in July 2023. It was set to take effect on January 15, 2024, but enforcement was quickly blocked after NetChoice, a tech trade group whose members include Meta Platforms, Snap Inc. and TikTok, sued on January 5, 2024. U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley issued a preliminary injunction in February 2024 and later, on April 16, 2025, permanently blocked the law.

The statute goes beyond a simple age check. It applies to children under 16, requires verifiable parental consent and calls for privacy guidelines so parents can see what content may be censored or moderated on a child’s profile. In practical terms, the ruling could push platforms to build or expand systems for age verification, parental approval and disclosure around moderation decisions, all while the legal fight continues.

Ohio officials have cast the law as a response to a youth mental health crisis. Governor Mike DeWine said in February 2024 that there was overwhelming evidence that social media harms minors’ mental health, and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said the goal was to address depression, suicide, bullying and sexual exploitation among children. NetChoice has argued the measure violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments and would endanger privacy and security by forcing companies to collect sensitive data.

The decision lands as other states test similar limits and the U.S. Supreme Court has already sent Florida and Texas platform-regulation cases back for more First Amendment analysis. That leaves Ohio as a national test case for a harder question than who won this round: whether age-gating can survive broader constitutional scrutiny as states press platforms toward parental controls and tighter verification.