A federal judge on Monday prevented Ohio from implementing a latest law that requires social media firms, including Meta Platform’s Instagram and ByteDance’s TikTok, to acquire parental consent before allowing children under 16 to make use of their platforms.
Chief US District Judge Algenon Marbley in Columbia agreed with the tech industry trade group NetChoice that the law violated minors’ free speech rights under the Structure’s First Amendment.
It marked the newest court decision blocking a state’s law designed to guard young people online as federal and state lawmakers look for methods to address rising concerns in regards to the dangers posed by social media to the mental health of youngsters.
Ohio’s Republican attorney general, Dave Yost, had argued that the state’s Social Media Parental Notification Act, which the legislature passed in July, was a sound measure geared toward protecting minors from damage to their mental health and sexual predators.
But Marbley agreed with NetChoice, whose members include TikTok, Elon Musk’s X, Alphabet’s YouTube, and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, that the law was “not narrowly tailored to those ends.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying at a Senate hearing last month. AFP via Getty Images
Tech industry trade group NetChoice argued that the law violated minors’ free speech rights under the Structure’s First Amendment. AP
“Foreclosing minors under sixteen from accessing all content on web sites that the Act purports to cover, absent affirmative parental consent, is a breathtakingly blunt instrument for reducing social media’s harm to children,” he wrote.
Monday’s ruling put Ohio’s law on hold indefinitely while the litigation continues after the judge last month issued an order that temporarily blocked it from taking effect on Jan. 15 as scheduled.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, called the ruling disappointing. He cited “overwhelming evidence that social media has a negative effect on the mental health of minors, including increases in depression and suicide-related behavior.”
The ruling marked the newest court decision blocking a state’s law designed to guard young people online as lawmakers look for methods to address rising concerns in regards to the dangers posed by social media to the mental health of youngsters. NurPhoto via Getty Images
“For the reason that federal courts are interpreting federal constitutional law as stopping the state of Ohio from protecting Ohio’s children, then Congress must act to guard our country’s children,” he said in a press release.
NetChoice last 12 months won court rulings blocking an analogous social media parental consent law in Arkansas and a children’s digital privacy law in California.
It’s difficult restrictions adopted in Utah as well.
