• by Wendy Davis , December 17, 2025

A federal judge has issued an injunction blocking enforcement of a Louisiana law that would have required social platforms to verify users' ages, and prohibited platforms from allowing minors under 16 to create or maintain accounts without parental permission.

In a 93-page ruling issued this week, U.S. District Court Judge John deGravelles in the Middle District of Louisiana found that the law, the Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation Act, violates the First Amendment.

"Minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection," deGravelles wrote, quoting from a 1982 Supreme Court ruling.

He added that the Supreme Court said in a 2011 decision that the government's power to protect children "does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”

The injunction prohibits state officials from attempting to enforce the law against 10 members of the tech organization NetChoice -- Meta Platforms, Nextdoor, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, X, YouTube, Tumblr, Discord and Amazon's Twitch.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill vowed to appeal.

"It’s unfortunate that the court chose to protect huge corporations that facilitate child exploitation over the legislative policy to require simple age verification mechanisms," she stated.

DeGravelles said in the ruling that Louisiana hadn't established that social media causes health harms to minors, but that even if the state had proven a causal connection the law would still be unconstitutional because it's both overinclusive and underinclusive.

"Here, the state seeks to regulate minors’ access to speech on social media platforms," he wrote.

"Overwhelmingly, such speech qualifies for First Amendment protection," he continued, adding: "Identical speech on unregulated websites remains easily accessible to minors."

The law also would have restricted platforms' ability to serve minors with some forms of personalized ads. 

Louisiana isn't the only state to attempt to restrict teens' use of social media. Other states including Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Utah, Ohio, Texas and Tennessee have passed statutes that would have either required parental consent for most social platforms, or banned some minors from the platforms.

District court judges have enjoined enforcement of most of those measures, but state attorneys general have appealed. So far, at least two appellate courts -- the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and 11th Circuit Court of Appeals -- have sided with state officials and allowed restrictions in Mississippi and Florida to take effect.