A law seeking to limit the use of social media by teenagers in the US state of Ohio has been struck down by a judge for being unconstitutional, as political leaders dig in on an impending national ban for under-16s in Australia.

Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act, passed into law in July 2023 and meant to come into effect from early 2024, required social media companies to obtain parental consent before allowing children aged under 16 to use their platforms.

But the regulation has been suspended by the courts and has not become law, and US District Court Judge Algenon Marbley ruled it was unconstitutional on Thursday.

While the judge said the intent of the law to protect children from harms online was “laudable”, he ruled it was in breach of the First Amendment and was “constitutionally infirm”.

The decision followed a lawsuit brought by NetChoice, a body representing the likes of Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and other tech firms.

In his judgement, Marbley said the social media ban law “resides at the intersection of two unquestionable rights: the rights of children to a ‘significant measure of’ freedom of speech and expression under the First Amendment, and the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children free from unnecessary government intrusion”.

He also pointed to a precedent that similar laws do not enforce parental authority but rather impose governmental authority over children, subject to a parental veto.

Similar social media age limits have been attempted in a number of US states, including California and Utah, and have also been struck down by the courts.

Australian leaders double-down during debate

The Australian government passed a stricter social media age ban into law late last year, with users under the age of 16 to be banned from holding social media accounts entirely by the end of 2025.

Under the scheme, social media firms will be slapped with a fine of up to $49.5 million for systemic failures to prevent children from holding accounts, or failing to destroy age verification data.

It is still unclear how these companies will be required to verify the age of their users, with social media companies needing to take “reasonable steps” to do so.

A trial is currently underway into age verification, age estimation, and age inference systems, with more than 50 companies confirmed to have contributed technologies to the tests.


Social media platforms will face fines for not complying with Australia's under-16s social media ban legislation. Image: Shutterstock

During a televised debate on Tuesday night ahead of the federal election on 3 May, both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton again put their support behind the social media age ban.

Albanese said the government “won’t budge” on the policy despite tech firms pressuring US President Donald Trump to take action over it.

“The social media ban that Australia is implementing with bipartisan support is world-leading,” Albanese said.

“There’s no question in my mind that in the lead-up to December, when it comes into force, you will see major pressure being placed by some of the social media giants.”

Dutton said the Coalition was “on a unity ticket” with Labor on the issue, and argued tech firms “just see our kids as a commodity, as a profit line online”.

Tech firms launch own initiatives

With the age ban looming, several tech giants have started implementing technologies in an effort to get ahead of new laws being planned around the world.

Meta this week announced Instagram would test the use of artificial intelligence to detect teenagers who were pretending to be adults on the app, and an expansion of restricted teen accounts to Facebook and Messenger, joining Instagram.

Instagram said it would “proactively” search for accounts it suspected were held by teenagers who set an inaccurate birthdate when they signed up, and would automatically turn their account into a teen account.

There has also been some disagreement among tech firms over whether social media platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat should be responsible for verifying the age of users, or if the responsibility should fall to app store operators such as Apple and Google.

In February, Apple unveiled age ID technology which can be used by platforms to request information about the age range of a child user, with the consent of their parent or guardian.

Google also announced it would begin using AI to estimate the age of users through analysis of search and YouTube data.