Appeals courts clear way for Florida, Georgia to enforce social‑media age and consent laws

Two federal appeals court rulings have cleared the way for Florida and Georgia to begin enforcing laws that restrict social media accounts for users under 16, ending preliminary court blocks that had kept the measures on hold since June 2025.

The immediate effect is practical, not theoretical. In Florida, a state law known as H.B. 3 requires covered platforms to bar children under 14 from opening or keeping accounts and allows 14- and 15-year-olds to have accounts only with parental consent. In Georgia, S.B. 351 requires parental consent for users under 16 and tells platforms to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify users’ ages. Georgia’s law also limits how platforms can use minors’ personal data for targeted advertising.

The rulings mean those requirements can now take effect while the cases continue in lower court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued its Florida opinion on Oct. 14 in Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Uthmeier, No. 25-11881, and its Georgia opinion on Oct. 15 in NetChoice v. Attorney General, State of Georgia, No. 25-12436. In Florida, the appeals court reversed the preliminary injunction on the trade groups’ as-applied First Amendment claim, vacated the injunction on their facial First Amendment challenge and sent the case back. In Georgia, it vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded the case.

That does not end the litigation or permanently settle whether either law is constitutional. Both cases were brought by trade groups representing internet companies — the Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice in Florida, and NetChoice in Georgia — which argued the laws violate the First Amendment. The Eleventh Circuit sent both disputes back to district court for further proceedings, and further appeals are still possible.

Still, the decisions mark a major shift after more than a year of legal limbo. Federal district courts had blocked Florida’s law on June 3, 2025, and Georgia’s on June 26, 2025. With those preliminary injunctions now removed, platforms operating in the two states may have to start applying age checks, parental-consent systems or account restrictions now, depending on how they interpret the laws and their coverage.

Florida’s law applies to certain platforms that let users upload content or view others’ content, use algorithms to select what users see, meet a threshold involving under-16 use and include at least one listed feature such as infinite scroll, push notifications, autoplay, livestreaming or engagement metrics. The Eleventh Circuit summarized the measure this way: “HB3 requires platforms within its ambit to prohibit anyone under the age of 14 from creating an account, and to prohibit anyone else under 16 from doing so without parental consent.”

The Georgia opinion similarly said that “SB 351 requires platforms within its ambit to verify the ages of all their users, to prohibit minors under the age of 16 from creating accounts without their parents’ consent, and to limit the personal data they use to display ads to users under 16.”

The cases are part of a broader wave of state laws passed in 2024 and 2025 to limit minors’ social media use, many of them challenged by tech industry groups on free-speech grounds. The Eleventh Circuit said it was applying the framework the Supreme Court set out in its 2024 decision in Moody v. NetChoice, which has become central to how lower courts assess broad First Amendment challenges to laws regulating online platforms.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, responded on Oct. 22 by urging people affected by the laws to document blocked access, failed age checks or parental-consent problems and send reports to [email protected]. The group said the laws threaten minors’ access to lawful speech and could pressure users to hand over more personal information to prove their ages.

For now, the key point is that enforcement can begin even though the legal fight is not over. How disruptive the change is in practice will depend on how covered platforms roll out age and consent checks in Florida and Georgia — and on what happens next in the district courts and any future appeals.