Multiple countries have passed laws to require age verification for social media services as an attempt to address certain harms on social media. [1] [2] [3] These bills and laws variety a lot with some of them restricting access to only to certain features or distinguish between different users online and which could lead to companies requiring age verification to have such restrictions such as the Kids Online Safety Act or require it outright and ban users under a certain age such as the Online Safety Amendment in Australia which bans anyone under 16 from holding a social media account including YouTube. [4] [5]
In May 2025 the Communication Authority of Kenya published guidelines on online safety for children one of the requirements for these guidelines was to require Application Service Providers (ASPs) and Content Service Providers (CSPs) have age verification to restrict harmful content. Alongside this the Kenya Parliament introduced the Kenya Information and Communications (Amendment) Bill, 2025 which requires age verification for social media services such as Facebook or Whatsapp, however as of August 2025 the bill proposed by the Parliament hasn't passed and the status of the guidelines by the Communications Authority remain unclear. [6] [7]
On 29 June 2023 France passed a law which would require parental consent for anyone under 15 to use social media, however the bill passed without a clear effective date, however stated that they would apply it as soon as possible. If the bill does go into effect, then companies would be fined up to one percent of their revenue if they do not comply with the law. [8] [9] [10] Since this law has passed the President of France Emmanuel Macron has said he could look into a complete ban for anyone under 15 to use social media. [11] [12]
In Late 2024 the Norwegian Government announced it was setting a minimum age of 15 for social media and would include an age verification barrier to access social media services. [2] [13] In June 2025 the Government would introduce the bill to set the age limit for consultation and the deadline for this consultation is 7 October 2025. [14] [15]
The Online Safety Act 2023 requires providers of "user-to-user" services (which includes many popular social media services) prevent access by children of content deemed harmful, including but not limited to pornographic content. To do this, platforms including Reddit [16] and Bluesky [17] have implemented age verification for UK users.
Since 2022 multiple states have passed laws requiring age verification for social media services such as California, Utah and Florida, however very few have taken effect due to legal challenges against them. The only two exceptions to this are Tennessee and Mississippi. [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] The law in Tennessee took effect after a Federal Judge denied a request to block the law in June 2025 and Mississippi's law HB 1126 was originally blocked from taking effect, however in July 2025 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the order blocking the law this then led to the ones challenging the law NetChoice to asked the U.S Supreme Court to block the law again which it denied in August. What has resulted from this is that Nextdoor has banned anyone under 18 from making an account on their service in Tennessee and Bluesky has blocked Mississippi users entirely. [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
| State | Authority | Signed | Effective | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | Gavin Newsom | September 15, 2022 (AB 2273) September 20, 2024 (SB 976) | Preliminarily Enjoined (both AB 2273 and SB 976) | On September 15, 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2273 into law, which requires websites which make over $25 million a year or have over 100,000 users and which are likely to be used by children to file Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIAs) to determine how safe their services are and require age estimation for all visitors. The law was later blocked by Federal Judge Beth Labson Freemen in September 2023 for violating the First Amendment. [31] [32] California appealed, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling on the DPIA section of the law and vacated the rest and returned back to the Trial Court in August 2024. [33] Judge Freemen blocked the law again completely in March 2025. [34] On September 20, 2024, Governor Newsom signed another law SB 976, which requires online services to not give anyone under 18 an addictive feed for more than an hour per day without parental consent and blocks notification between 12 am and 6 am and during school days between 8 am to 3 pm; those under 18 must also have default settings and social media companies must put out some disclosures. [35] In December 2024, Federal Judge Edward Davila blocked the law's notifications provisions as well as the disclosures provisions, however, let the rest of the law take effect including the age verification provision. [36] NetChoice, the ones challenging the law, asked the court to block it completely pending appeal. Judge Davila granted this request for 30 days, so that the Ninth Circuit could review the law pending appeal; the Ninth Circuit would later extend the injunction. [37] There was a hearing on the law on April 2, 2025, and a decision remains pending from the Appellate court. [38] |
| Utah | Spencer Cox | March 23, 2023 | Preliminarily enjoined | On March 23, 2023, Governor Spencer Cox signed the Utah Social Media Regulation Act also known as SB 152 and HB 311. SB 152 requires social media companies with more than 5 million users to conduct age verification on all users and require parental consent for those under 18 years of age and cannot allow a minor on a social media platform between 10:30 pm - 6:30 pm MST. [39] [40] HB 311 allows parents of minors who have been harmed by addiction from social media to sue and collect up to 250,000 dollars in damages with a rebuttable presumption that if the minor was under 16 that harm occurred was because of social media. In December 2023 the social media trade association NetChoice sued Utah over the law claiming that it violated the First Amendment. [41] In response to this Utah amended its social media laws with SB 194 and HB 494 to avoid the law being deemed unconstitutional the governor signed these amendments in March 2024. The new laws removed the curfew of social media of 10:30 pm - 6:30 am and removed the provisions of it that required parental consent to open a social media account. However, youth accounts are still restricted from accessing certain features such as autoplay or direct messaging. [42] However, this wouldn't avoid the constitutional issues as the laws were declared unconstitutional by Chief Judge Robert Shelby on September 10, 2024 by granting NetChoice's request for a Preliminary Injunction basically blocking the laws enforcement pending any further legal proceedings against the law. [43] |
| Arkansas | Sarah Huckabee Sanders | April 11, 2023 | Permanently enjoined | In April 2023 Arkansas passed SB 396 which requires certain social such as Facebook and Twitter media platforms to verify the age of users and require parental consent for those under 18 the law would have included websites such as YouTube but would later be exempt after lobbying. [44] [45] The law was blocked on August 31, 2023, by Judge Timothy L. Brooks. and would permanently block the law in March 2025. [46] [47] |
| Texas | Greg Abbott | June 13, 2023 | Partly enjoined | On June 13, 2023, Texas passed the SCOPE Act also known as HB 18 into law and was set to take effect in September 2024. [48] The law requires websites to verify the parent or guardian of a minor under 18 if they want to join an online service that is covered by the SCOPE Act and those covered websites must also have some level of parental controls over the minors account and websites must filter out a vague list of harmful subjects for minors as well as block targeted advertisements for minors. [49] However, multiple sections of the law were blocked by Judge Robert Pitman of the U.S District Court for the Western District of Texas. The first sections he blocked was in the case Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton where he blocked the filters section of bill on August 30, 2024. [50] He would then later block the targeted advertisements and age verification sections of the law on February 7, 2025 in the case Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton. [51] Both the CCIA and SEAT cases are now pending in the U.S Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. |
| Louisiana | John Bel Edwards | June 28, 2023 | July 1, 2025 | On June 28, 2023, SB 162 was passed into law in the state of Louisiana which requires social media platforms to verify age of all users and require parental consent for those under 16 years of age. [52] [53] [54] Once parental consent is granted the parent or guardian is able to supervise the minors account such being able to view the privacy settings or set breaks on the account. [55] The laws effective date was originally July 1, 2024, but was delayed to July 1, 2025, after Louisiana passed a law banning targeted advertisements for those under 18 which would also take effect on July 1, 2025. [56] In March 2025 NetChoice sued over both SB 162 and HB 577 during the proceedings of the lawsuit Netchoice was temporally in controversy because the Attorney General of Louisiana Liz Murrill claimed that Netchoice's expert Dr. Anthony Bean had submitted an ai generated declaration in the case and sought to remove his declaration. [57] [58] Netchoice has since said that this was the first time they used Dr. Bean for any of their cases but are confident they will win their case still. [59] |
| Ohio | Mike DeWine | July 4, 2023 | Permanently enjoined | In July 2023 Governor Mike DeWine signed HB 33 which was the states 2024 - 2025 fiscal bill which included the Social Media Parental Notification Act. [60] The act was put in fiscal bill by former Lieutenant Governor of Ohio Jon Husted as a way to address potential harms on social media services. [61] The law which is codified as 1349.09 and it requires operators of online services to not allow minors under 16 to use their services unless they have parental consent and can revoke parental consent if they choose to. [62] On April 16, 2025, the law was declared unconstitutional in its entirety and permanently blocked by Judge Algenon L. Marbley after he previously granted a Temporary Restraining Order in January 2024 and a Preliminary Injunction in February of the same year. [63] [64] [65] |
| Florida | Ron DeSantis | March 25, 2024 | Preliminarily enjoined | In March 2024 Florida passed HB 3 which is codified as 501.1736 and requires any social media or gaming service that have at least 10 percent of users under 16 who use their service for at least 2 hours a day to ban those under 14 from using their service and require parental consent for those 14 or 15 years old. On March 13, 2025, Chief Judge Mark E. Walker denied a request to block the law because it was unclear if the law applied to any members of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) or Netchoice. [66] [67] [68] He would later in June 2025 grant an amended request to block the law after the Plaintiffs challenging the law submitted evidence that at least some of their members were affected by the act. Florida had also attempted to enforce the law against Snapchat after the Judge denied the first request to block it. [69] [70] The state after the judge granted the request to block the law quickly appealed to the U.S Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. [71] |
| Georgia | Brian Kemp | April 23, 2024 | Preliminarily enjoined | In April 2024 Georgia passed SB 351 codified as §39-6-1 to §39-6-5 which requires social media companies to verify the age of users and users under 16 must have parental consent and cannot be shown targeted advertising. [72] In June 2025 the law was blocked from taking effect after a federal judge found it to be likely unconstitutional. [73] |
| Mississippi | Tate Reeves | April 30, 2024 | July 17, 2025 | Mississippi in 2024 passed a law known as HB 1126 which requires Digital Service Providers (DSPs) to verify the age of account holders and require parental consent for those under 18. DSPs aren't allowed to collect certain data from users under 18 or show them a vaguely defined list of harmful content such as content about stalking or illegal activities. [74] In June 2024 the trade association NetChoice sued Mississippi over the law and in July 2024 federal judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden blocked the law from taking effect. [75] [76] Mississippi would then appeal the ruling and in April 2025 the Fifth Circuit would vacate the injunction blocking Mississippi's law because the court didn't review the law correctly under the Supreme Court's decision in Moody v. NetChoice. [77] NetChoice would then file an amended complaint and won a new injunction In June 2025. Mississippi once again appealed and in July 2025 the Fifth Circuit stayed the order for the second injunction. [26] [27] NetChoice would then appeal to the U.S Supreme Court which denied the request to block Mississippi's law, however Justice Kavanaugh concurred stating he believed that NetChoice would succeed on the merits, however, didn't show any evidence that a temporary order in favor of the state would harm them. [78] [28] In response to this the social networking app Bluesky blocked access to Mississippi in August 2025. [30] |
| Tennessee | Bill Lee | May 2, 2024 | January 1, 2025 | In 2024 Tennesse passed the Protecting Kids from Social Media Act also known as HB 1891. The law requires social media to verify the age of users and require parental consent for users under 18. [79] On June 18, 2025, Judge Eli Richardson denied a preliminary injunction to block the law because NetChoice had not shown that its members would face irreparable harm without an injunction. [26] |
| New York | Kathy Hochul | June 20, 2024 | 180 days after guidance is given by the Attorney General of New York. | In 2024 New York passed a law known as the SAFE For Kids Act that requires parental consent for minors under 18 to use certain social media feeds and restrict notifications between the hours of 12:00 am - 6:00 am. [80] [81] |
| Virginia | Glenn Youngkin | May 2, 2025 | January 1, 2026 | SB 854 codified as §59.1-577.1 is an amendment to the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act and the amendment to it requires social media companies to estimate the age of users and limit usage to one hour per day per app for users under 16 and the time limit can be increased with parental consent. [82] [83] |
| Nebraska | Jim Pillen | May 20, 2025 | July 1, 2026 | |
| Vermont | Phil Scott | June 12, 2025 | January 1, 2027 |