A federal appeals court just handed parents a major win against some of the biggest names in tech.
Ohio’s social media parental-consent law is back in play.
That means children under 16 may soon need parental consent before creating or using accounts on covered social media platforms in the state.
The fight came from NetChoice, the trade group backed by major platforms including Meta, Google/YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and others.
Federal appeals court rules Ohio can require parental consent for children under 16 on social media https://t.co/HfixLF0pZ9
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) June 19, 2026
According to the official Sixth Circuit opinion, a divided panel reversed the lower-court judgment that had blocked Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act after NetChoice challenged it on First Amendment and vagueness grounds.
The court said a majority of the panel agreed NetChoice failed to establish that the Act is facially unconstitutional, which is a major legal setback for the trade group.
The panel sent the case back with instructions to enter judgment in favor of Yost, the Ohio attorney general named in the case, instead of leaving the injunction in place.
That is the key legal move: the law that had been frozen by a federal district court now has a path toward enforcement after years of litigation.
The opinion lays out the state interest plainly.
Ohio argued that social media has been linked to harms facing young people, including mental-health problems, eating disorders, academic decline, and other risks tied to online platforms.
The law’s answer is not a total ban.
It puts parents back in the decision loop before a child under 16 opens or uses a covered account.
Fox Business reported that the 2-1 decision overturned a lower-court ruling that had blocked enforcement of the Ohio law after NetChoice’s challenge.
The report said the law requires certain websites and social media platforms to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before children under 16 can create or use accounts.
Fox Business also noted that the law includes an 11-factor test for deciding whether a website is likely to be accessed by children, along with several exceptions for sites outside the law’s reach.
NetChoice argued the law was vague, overbroad, and an improper restriction on minors’ access to protected speech, but the appeals court let Ohio move forward over those objections for now, despite Big Tech’s pushback.
That matters because Big Tech has spent years fighting state-level child-safety rules in court.
This time, the industry did not get the result it wanted.
Ohio officials framed the outcome as a win for families and parental oversight.
(The Center Square) – Calling it a win for families, Ohio’s new attorney general Friday praised a federal appeals court ruling that allows the state’s social media age verification law to take effect after sitting for more than two years. Attorney General Andy Wilson praised the…
— Common Sense with Chad Law (@chadparkerlaw) June 19, 2026
NetChoice responded by saying it was disappointed in the Sixth Circuit’s ruling and remains confident the law will ultimately be struck down in later proceedings.
The group argued the decision threatens online privacy and constitutional rights, and it signaled that the fight over Ohio’s law is still moving through the courts rather than fully settled.
That reaction is expected from the same trade group that brought the challenge and has opposed multiple state-level online child-safety laws around the country on similar constitutional grounds.
Its position is that age verification and parental-consent rules can burden online speech and force users to hand over personal information before accessing platforms, even when lawmakers say the target is child safety.
Ohio’s position is simpler.
If a child under 16 is going to be pulled into social media, parents should know and approve first.
The appeals court just gave that argument a major boost.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
