Ohio Wins the Fight to Keep Its Social Media Parental Consent Law Alive

Key Takeaways

• The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court ruling that had permanently blocked Ohio's Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act, with two of three judges agreeing NetChoice failed to prove the law was facially unconstitutional.
• The law requires social media operators to obtain verifiable parental consent before children under 16 can create accounts, with civil penalties reaching up to $10,000 per day for sustained noncompliance.
• The court found the law survives strict scrutiny, ruling Ohio's compelling interest in protecting minors from documented social media harms justifies the consent requirement.
• NetChoice was denied standing to assert First Amendment rights on behalf of minors, with the court finding the trade group's financial stake in maximizing minor engagement is directly opposed to the interests the law protects.
• Enforcement still relies on self-reported ages, meaning a child who claims to be over 16 faces no verification check.

What Ohio's Law Actually Requires

Ohio's Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act, signed July 4, 2023, and effective January 15, 2024, covers any platform that lets Ohio users interact socially, build profiles, form connections, and view content generated by others. Any such operator that targets or is reasonably anticipated to be accessed by children under 16 must obtain verifiable parental consent before a child can register or create an account.

Absent parental consent, the child must be denied access. Civil penalties escalate from $1,000 per day for the first 60 days to $10,000 per day after 90, with investigation costs on top.

NetChoice, whose members include Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Snap, X, and Pinterest, filed suit the same day the law took effect, arguing the Act violated the First Amendment and was unconstitutionally vague. A federal district court agreed and permanently enjoined enforcement in April 2025. Ohio appealed.

How the Sixth Circuit Took the Case Apart

The appeals court reversed on two separate grounds.

On standing, the lead opinion held that NetChoice cannot assert First Amendment rights on behalf of its members' minor users. NetChoice's members earn an estimated $11 billion annually in U.S. advertising revenue from users under 18, generated by platforms engineered to maximize that engagement. A trade group with that financial stake in minor platform use cannot credibly champion those minors' speech rights, because its interests and theirs run in opposite directions whenever supervision becomes the question.

On the merits, Judge Clay found the law content-based and subject to strict scrutiny, but surviving it. Ohio's interest in protecting children from the documented harms of social media, including depression, body dysmorphia, and predatory exploitation, is compelling. The parental consent mechanism is narrowly tailored to the specific harm, which is unsupervised engagement with platforms engineered to maximize it.

As the court's opinion put it, the requirement "constitutes a marginal burden that precisely targets the multi-faceted problem that Ohio has identified." Judge Ritz dissented, finding NetChoice has standing and the law fails strict scrutiny. The decision is 2-1, and NetChoice has signaled it is reviewing its options.

When Winning in Court and Fixing the Problem Are Two Different Things

Ohio won. The law can now be enforced. The mechanism for enforcing it is the honor system.

Ohio's counsel confirmed at oral argument that this is a self-reporting statute. A child who provides a false birth year faces no verification requirement. Age verification has been climbing the tech stack for exactly this reason, with self-reporting having never blocked determined minors, so legislators keep reaching for stronger tools.

The evidence from jurisdictions that tried harder enforcement is not encouraging. The UK's robust age assurance regime was defeated by children drawing fake mustaches to fool facial age estimation tools, with 46% reporting that age checks are easy to bypass. Ohio's law doesn't attempt facial estimation. Children who misrepresent their age bypass the consent system entirely before any record is ever created.

NetChoice's opposition to this law was never really about children's speech. It was about its members' right to contract with children without a parent in the room, dressed up in constitutional language, and the $11 billion in annual advertising revenue the record shows is riding on that access. The court was right to name the conflict and deny them standing on that basis.

That said, Ohio's law is not the answer either. A consent framework that relies entirely on children accurately reporting their own ages is not child protection. It is documentation of child protection. The platforms NetChoice represents do cause real harm, and the court's findings on that are worth taking seriously. The solution is not, unfortunately, a law that a determined 13-year-old can sidestep by entering a false birthday.