The State by State Push to Restrict Youth Access to Social Media

CJ Larkin and Max Morgan are Tech and Public Policy Scholars at Georgetown University.

Across the United States, lawmakers at the state and federal levels have moved to restrict young people’s access to social media. Fueled by growing concerns around the impacts of social media on youth mental health, lawmakers across party lines have begun prioritizing legislation that curbs youth access to the platforms.

These efforts have accelerated after the 2025 Supreme Court decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which upheld a Texas age-verification law for sexually explicit websites. The court applied intermediate rather than strict scrutiny, signaling that courts may be more receptive to age-gating measures online than in the past. While the ruling’s direct holding was limited to restricting access to sexual content (in this case, websites with at least two-thirds of its content being sexually explicit), it has emboldened legislatures pursuing broader youth-focused internet regulation, including social media restrictions.

While many countries have begun implementing national-level social media bans, no outright ban has gained traction at the federal level within the United States. The most notable federal effort, Senator Cruz and Senator Schatz’s Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA), which would bar users under the age of 13, advanced out of the Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee in June of last year with bipartisan support, but has seen no further action.

However, state legislatures have seen a surge of proposals to regulate youth access to social media platforms. Since 2023, 28 states have introduced at least one bill aimed at restricting minors’ access. In the United States, these proposals generally fall into three categories: outright bans, mandatory parental consent, and app store-level age requirements.

Outright bans would prohibit any person under a certain age from joining a social media platform, such as a rapidly advancing proposal in Massachusetts to restrict all users under 14. Mandatory parental-consent bans would allow youth of a certain age to use a platform, but only after approval from a parent, often requiring age or identity verification. App store-level requirements, while not an explicit ban of minors from social media, would require users to verify their age before downloading apps, restricting many young users from accessing the app version of platforms, as enacted in measures such as Alabama’s HB 161.

No state has successfully implemented a full blanket ban, such as the one adopted in Australia, but many states have passed legislation banning minor access to social media, which was subsequently blocked in court. For example, Louisiana's Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation Act, which would require parental consent for users under 16, was passed in 2023 but was permanently enjoined as of December 2025. Other states, including California, have seen support from political leaders for similar measures, but have yet to introduce fully developed legislation. Many states have had bills introduced that initially advanced but later stalled.

Despite bipartisan support, youth social media restrictions do face opposition in the US. Civil liberties groups such as the ACLU have argued that social media is protected speech for minors, and that age-gating access to lawful expression would be unconstitutional—a view federal courts have largely affirmed by striking down or enjoining laws in states such as Arkansas and Florida.

Additional concerns center on user privacy and data security, particularly the collection of government IDs, biometric data, and other personally identifiable information required for age verification. Critics also warn that such laws could disproportionately affect vulnerable youth, such as LGBTQ+ minors, unhoused youth, and youth in unsafe environments who rely on social media to access resources and community. These demographics risk being limited by the parental consent requirement, due to factors such as a lack of support (in the case of LGBTQ+ youth) from parents or guardians, or inability to access correct documentation.

This tracker map provides a snapshot of legislative efforts across the country, focusing on legislation that restricts or blocks minors' access to social media (note: it does not include legislation that requires age verification for minors or parents to access specific social media features). It provides information on each state’s status, including introduced bills, enacted laws and blocked measures, along with details on policy design and implementation. Legislation is moving quickly, and implementation details often shift. If you’re aware of new proposals, amendments, or enforcement updates we should include, please contact us at contributions@techpolicy.press.