A federal appeals court has cleared the way for Georgia to enforce its law requiring social media platforms to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before children under 16 can open accounts.
On October 15, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction that had blocked Senate Bill 351 since before its planned July 1, 2025, effective date. The case now returns to the federal district court in Atlanta for further proceedings.
Passed in 2024, SB 351 requires social media services to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify a user’s age, with anyone who cannot be verified treated as a minor. Parents of children younger than 16 must consent before their children join a service, and platforms face limits on how they target ads to those users and how much data they collect from them. Companies that fail to make reasonable verification efforts can be fined.
The tech industry trade group NetChoice, whose members include Meta, Google and Amazon, sued Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr to stop the law. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg sided with the group in 2025, writing that the state sought “to erect barriers to speech that cannot withstand the rigorous scrutiny that the Constitution requires.” The decision came a day after the same appeals court ruled that Florida’s HB 3 teen social media limits are likely constitutional.
The appeals panel found that NetChoice had not shown enforcement of the law would be unconstitutional, because it did not address the “full range” of the law’s applications and “hasn’t provided even a full list of its own members to which SB 351 applies.” The court also wrote that social media sites do not necessarily host only fully protected speech, noting the state’s argument that platforms such as X and Reddit host some pornography, which is protected for adults but not for minors.
NetChoice has argued that SB 351 would force users of all ages to verify their identities online. In a brief to the court, Carr said platforms already have the technology needed to meet the verification requirements.
Carr called the decision “a major win for Georgia families and a huge blow to those who would stand in the way of commonsense solutions to protect our kids.” NetChoice said it was evaluating its next legal steps and remained “committed to fighting for Georgians’ right to free expression online.”
Sources: CBS Atlanta, FOX 5 Atlanta
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
