Georgia sued over new social media parental consent law

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A 12-year-old boy looks at an iPhone screen showing various social media apps including TikTok, Facebook and X. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

ATLANTA - A new Georgia law requiring parental consent for children to use social media has been challenged in court.

The suit is asking a federal judge to declare the law unconstitutional because it violates First Amendment rights to free speech and 14th Amendment rights to due process.

The backstory:

Gov. Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill 351 into law in 2024. The law requires children younger than 16 to have their parents’ explicit permission to create social media accounts. Companies would be required to verify users' ages by July 1, 2025. 

Social media companies would also be limited in how they could customize ads for children younger than 16 and how much information they could collect on those children, a provision that Thursday’s lawsuit by NetChoice, an industry group, also argues is illegal.

Georgia law restricts minors on social media

One of the latest bills signed into law by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will require minors to get their parental permission before creating any social media accounts.

Officials said the law's primary aim was to combat cyberbullying and address concerns surrounding youth mental health in relation to social media use.

Similar laws have been overturned by federal judges in Arkansas and Ohio and temporarily blocked in Utah. Litigation is pending against laws in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.

What they're saying:

"Georgia’s SB 351 unconstitutionally blocks access to protected online speech and forces Georgians to surrender their private information just to use everyday digital services," Paul Taske, NetChoice associate director of litigation, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "That’s unconstitutional, as several other states have now been told by courts. We’re fighting to keep online communication safe and free in the Peach State."

NetChoice spokesperson Krista Chavez said the group is not challenging a separate section of the Georgia law that requires age verification for users of online pornography sites. A number of states have made laws aimed at pornography, and a challenge to Texas’ law is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The other side:

Georgia officials said they will defend the measure.

"It’s a shame that the industry would rather file a lawsuit than partner with us to protect children from online predators," Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican running for governor in 2026, said in a statement.

Republican state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement that he "won’t stop working to give Georgia’s parents the tools they need to help keep kids safe online."

Dig deeper:

The fight pits a growing movement that social media use is harmful to children and teens against constitutional protections for free speech. While the laws in Georgia and other states require parental consent, Australia, a country without constitutional free speech protections, has banned social media for children younger than 16 altogether.

Some in the U.S. Congress have also proposed parental consent for minors.

To comply with federal regulations, social media companies already ban kids under 13 from signing up for their platforms. 

But children have been shown to easily evade the bans. Up to 95% of teens aged 13 to 17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use them "almost constantly," the Pew Research Center found.