Sixth Circuit Reverses Injunction on Ohio Social Media Parental Consent Law

The panel held that the statute imposes only a marginal burden on speech by shifting the default from minor self-consent to parental authorization. Judge Clay’s majority opinion tied the requirement directly to documented platform design features that maximize engagement time among minors, citing legislative findings on addiction metrics and mental-health data submitted by Ohio. The ruling treats the consent gate as content-neutral regulation of access rather than speaker-based restriction.

NetChoice’s litigation record shows parallel challenges in Arkansas and California produced district-level blocks on similar consent and age-verification measures. Ohio’s statute, enacted 2023 and effective January 2024, survived because the appeals court accepted the state’s interest in mitigating unsupervised platform access as compelling and narrowly advanced by parental override. The decision creates circuit precedent that other states in the Sixth Circuit can cite when drafting comparable rules.

Tech platforms face a coordination problem: uniform national standards are absent, so compliance costs rise with each state-level consent regime. Ohio gains enforcement leverage and political credit for child-safety measures while shifting verification costs onto firms. The record indicates NetChoice will seek further review; the next 90 days will determine whether en banc rehearing or certiorari follows.