ATLANTA (CN) — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked a Georgia law requiring parental consent before allowing minors to create social media accounts, less than a month before it goes into effect.
In a 50-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg granted the request for a preliminary injunction sought by tech lobbyist NetChoice, finding its argument that the law violates the First Amendment has a likelihood of success.
“SB 351 purports to regulate minors’ social media use for their own good. But the State has carved out dozens of arbitrary exemptions and, in oral argument, downplayed the rigor of its parental consent requirements. The State certainly has the authority and ability to provide children and parents with education, resources, and tools to understand the detriments of social media and engage with the internet in a healthier and more productive way,” Totenberg wrote.
“But the challenged portions of SB 351 do not do so. Instead, the act curbs the speech rights of Georgia’s youth while imposing an immense, potentially intrusive burden on all Georgians who wish to engage in the most central computerized public fora of the twenty-first century. This cannot comport with the free flow of information the First Amendment protects,” she added.
The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment carries no age limit and that precedent applies even amid the potent risks of digital interconnectivity and social media on young people, Totenberg wrote.
During a hearing earlier this month, state attorney Logan Winkles argued that nothing in the law involves censoring or restricting online speech.
He said the law was created to combat a “mental health crisis” that has a direct connection with social media and is uniquely dangerous to children and teens by keeping them engaged and addicted. Winkles added that children are also more vulnerable to adult bad actors who can easily take advantage of them on social media.
“This court takes seriously the acute harm that social media may potentially cause young people. Young people’s pervasive exposure to social media has also been accompanied by escalating mental health challenges,” Totenberg wrote.
“That said, the core principles of the First Amendment constitute a vital shield protective of the constitutional rights of both adults and youth. ‘Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply,'” the judge added.
Senate Bill 351, also known as the “Protecting Georgia’s Children on Social Media Act of 2024,” says social media services would have to use “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify someone’s age by July 1, 2025.
Services would have to treat anyone who can’t be verified as a minor. Parents of children under 16 would have to consent to their children creating an account.
Under the law, social media companies would also be limited in how they could customize advertisements for children under 16 and how much data they could collect on those children. The law would prohibit services from using data other than location and age when presenting advertisements to a minor.
“The state seeks to erect barriers to speech that cannot withstand the rigorous scrutiny that the Constitution requires, and the inapt tailoring of the law — which is rife with exemptions that undermine its purpose — dooms its constitutionality and calls into question its efficacy,” Totenberg wrote.
Winkles told the judge that the law has nothing to do with regulating content and instead serves as a minor gate-keeping provision for contracts between the most powerful companies in the world and children.
But in Totenberg’s view, the law still enforces content-based regulation because it distinguishes speech based on the speaker, or the platform, versus the user, making it subject to stricter scrutiny.
“Because of the enormous burdens imposed on the First Amendment rights of children, adults, and social media platforms — along with the significant tailoring issues inherent in the law — even the state’s serious interest here cannot justify SB 351 under the First Amendment’s rigorous standards,” the judge wrote.
A handful of states have enacted similar laws aimed at protecting minors online, often by requiring some form of age verification and/or parental consent for minors seeking to use social media. NetChoice — which represents members like Meta, Google, Amazon and X, formerly Twitter — has challenged at least eight other state laws in Texas, Ohio, Arkansas, California, Utah, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee. Nearly all of which are currently enjoined on a preliminary or permanent basis.
