Court Revives Ohio's Social Media Parental Consent Law
The Facts
- The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on Thursday that Ohio's Social Media Parental Notification Act must be restored, overturning a lower court block on the law requiring parental consent for users under 16.
- The Ohio law, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in July 2023 as part of an $86.1 billion state budget bill, requires social media and gaming companies to obtain parental permission for minors and disclose privacy guidelines.
- Judge Eric Clay wrote that the law "imposes a parental consent requirement" that is "a marginal burden" targeting children's "unsupervised assent to terms and conditions" on platforms that "take advantage of and harm them."
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The Spin
Narrative A
Social media platforms are algorithmic addiction machines designed to hijack kids' attention and harvest their data, and no court ruling changes that reality. Leaving children with frictionless access to these systems isn't freedom — it's negligence dressed up as principle. Society restricts minors from alcohol, cigarettes and driving, so demanding parental consent before billion-dollar corporations get access to children is basic, reasonable protection.
Narrative B
Ohio's Social Media Parental Notification Act was ruled unconstitutional because it violated First Amendment rights and actually stripped parents of authority rather than protecting it. Forcing tech firms to verify ages and identities hands government unprecedented control over who gets online and what they can see — a licensing regime that mirrors authoritarian internet censorship in principle. Protecting kids online and protecting constitutional rights aren't mutually exclusive, and a bad law achieves neither.
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