There’s absolutely no doubt that your child’s journey through social media can be productive or perilous.
And the peril side of that equation is deeply concerning, so much so that both conservative and liberal states have already passed landmark laws to try to make social media safer for kids.
Australia has banned social media for kids under 16. Now kids are either enjoying lives free from the distraction and pressure, or have resorted to using VPN’s and finding apps that aren't yet banned. Meanwhile, the tech companies are pushing back, even while still doing what the law requires. In the first month Meta blocked over 500,000 accounts which couldn’t have been great for the stock price.
Guess What? Many US States Have Passed A Similar Law.
At least nine states, including Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Virginia, California, Nebraska and Tennessee have enacted laws that include age restrictions on social media or require parental consent-and many had privacy and content clauses.
But unlike what they’ve managed to do in Australia, only a few of the laws have survived here. As I write this, Virginia, Mississippi and Nebraska are holding on after litigation attempted to stop their good intentions. The fact is most of these laws don’t go into effect because they are blocked, suspended or temporarily halted because of lawsuits against them. Many of the suits are filed by NetChoice or the Computer and Communications Industry Association, CCIA. In many cases, the CCIA and NetChoice join together to prevent Social Media safety laws from going into effect. They also write letters, urging Governors not to sign the legislation lawmakers have voted in.NetChoice is an industry trade group that includes Meta, Snap, Discord, Pinterest, X and Reddit along with the likes of Amazon, hotels.com and Etsy . NetChoice says it “works to make the Internet safe for free enterprise and free expression.” The CCIA includes Meta, Amazon, Apple, Uber, Samsung, ebay, X and companies like Intuit and Yahoo and even one of my favorite browser companies, Mozilla.
Net Choice Members:
Airbnb, Amazon, Automattic, Discord, Ream Width, Duolingo, EarnIn, ebay, Etsy, Expedia, Google, Hims&Hers, HomeAway, Hotels.com, JPMorganChase, Lyft, Meta, Netflix, Nextdoor, OfferUp, OpenAI, Abitz, PayPal, Pindrop, Pinterest, reddit, StubHub, Snap Inc., Swimply, TikTok, Travel Tech, Travelocity, Trivago, Turo, X, Vrbo, Waymo, Wing, and YouTube.
CCIA Members:
Amazon, Apple, CloudFlare, Coupang, Deliveroo, ebay, Echostar, Google, Intel, Intuit, JpMorganChase, Meta, Nord Security, Opera, Pinterest, Shopify, Texas Net, Uber, Viagogo, Waymo, and Zebra.
Louisiana, Arkansas and Ohio’s laws were struck down last year as NetChoice sued on the basis of the 1st amendment. NetChoice said on their website that it “delivered a decisive win for free expression in NetChoice v. Murrill” the lawsuit against Louisiana’s social media legislation.
First NetChoice Wrote Virginia General Assembly To Stop The Vote, When It Passed They Urged the Governor Not To Sign
Even so Virginia’s law which mandates that kids have to be 16 and can only use a platform for one hour a day took effect January 2026. And almost immediately NetChoice sued saying it violated 1st amendment rights and asked that the Virginal law be put on hold as “their case moves through the legal system.” Nebraska recently passed one of the strictest measures, requiring parental approval for anyone under 18 to open an account- Net Choice urged the Governor to veto it, but Jim Pilen did not.
The Nebraska Attorney General will be enforcing the Parental Rights in Social Media Act, penalizing up to $2,500 for each violation.
A Mississippi law passed in 2024 requires young people get their parents' consent and social media sites to verify their ages before they can open an account. It also mandates that social media companies should create a strategy to protect kids from being exposed to bullying, substance abuse and content that promotes self harm.
Even before the law went into effect, NetChoice sued to block it, saying, “As NetChoice has seen in other states, mandating age verification and parental consent for digital services violates privacy and stifles the free exchange of ideas.”
Does this sound as crazy to you as it does to me? When I think about how hard it is to get a new piece of legislation through the system only to have industry backed court challenges holding, stopping and often blocking the law from going into effect it’s just audacious. Each one of these states represent millions of children who innocently trust their government, parents and institutions to have their best interests at heart. I’m betting right now that most of you who are reading this, had no idea this was going on. Even though NetChoice and the CCIA don’t hide in fact they proclaim it on their websites.
Watching that Mississippi suit go back and forth from district courts to circuit courts to an emergency filing with The Supreme Court in July of 2025 must be hard for the parents and friends of Walker Montgomery.
Walker Montgomery’s experience on social media is what inspired the law. Walker is the 16-year-old high school football player from Mississippi who committed suicide after he became the victim of sextortion.
It’s a horrible story. A normal kid begins chatting with a girl on Instagram and the chat becomes so friendly they decide to do mutual sex videos. The horrifying part is that this turns out to be a Nigerian sextortion scheme to get a kid to pay money by threatening him that his video will be sent to friends and family if he doesn’t send $1,000.
The Mississippi Dispatch reported that Walter’s dad, Brian has been speaking all over the state, warning parents and kids and sharing his son’s story. “They had the most leverage on Walker as they could get,” Montgomery said. “So they have this video of Walker, and if we can all imagine ourselves in that position—we are all adults here, and we’ve all been in positions that are not very friendly to a video camera… I can only imagine what went through Walker’s mind…” Within four hours of the initial contact, Walker had taken his own life.
Two years later, the state law was passed.
And as soon as it did NetChoice sued to stop it. And when they did, they asked for an injunction that would stop the law from going into effect until their lawsuit was completely settled. That can take years. A year later the injunction was lifted by a circuit court and NetChoice filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the land, attempting to once again not allow this law, passed and signed by the governor to take effect.
The Supreme Court ruled in Mississippi's favor and the injunction was removed. And that means the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act is the law.
Except that part where NetChoice with its seemingly unlimited budget, continues to fight it.
NetChoice just filed testimony against Washington state's social media act, admonishing them, “The past two years alone have produced a remarkable string of judicial rejections spanning the Ninth Circuit and district courts in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Texas, and Utah” saying “These laws violate the First Amendment because they are not sufficiently tailored to achieve their stated goals. Worse, they accomplish the opposite of empowering parents: they replace parental judgment with state diktat.” Time and time again the arguments against the laws include free speech and parental power.
https://netchoice.org/netchoice-testimony-in-opposition-to-washington-states-digital-parenting-attempts/
NetChoice says this as it summarizes its fight against the Arkansas safety law:
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“And most unfortunately, it takes away power from parents, giving them false hope while doing nothing to improve online spaces” netchoice.org/netchoice-v-griffin-arkansas-2025/
That Arkansas law by the way called for parental consent as well as a reasonable way to verify a user was 16. It also prohibited algorithms from targeting minors and had penalties for platforms that violated it.
You may feel the social media platforms are in fact taking away your power by not giving you full power to intervene, to decide at what age your child goes online, and by letting kids claim they’re older so they can create an account, often without a parent knowing about it .
You could believe the laws could’ve helped you with the boundaries you might choose or you might agree that the laws would take your power to parent away and violate the free speech concerns of social media. Either way, it’s clear to almost everyone that social media platforms are addictive.
https://netchoice.org/netchoice-litigation-2025-wrapped-protecting-free-enterprise-free-expression-online-when-lawmakers-crossed-the-line/
The https://netchoice.org/netchoice-sues-virginia-to-stop-free-speech-limits-online/
9 https://cdispatch.com/news/teens-suicide-spurs-legislation-to-fight-online-sextortion/