News · Electronic Frontier Foundation EN LLM context A cited markdown file you can paste into your AI assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, a RAG or project knowledge base) to ground it in this document. Contains: this document’s text, its sections with their topics, and the full text of every law provision it applies. Everything links back to its source on overview.legal — legal information, not advice.

States attempted to censor the online activities of children. Courts and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) largely managed to prevent this: a look back at 2025.

Minors Child Consent Social Media Consent Audit Logs Religious Beliefs Security Law Enforcement
Dec 31, 2025
Summary

In at least a dozen states, lawmakers believe they can pass laws that prohibit young people from accessing social media, or that require them to obtain parental consent before logging in. Fortunately, almost all courts that have reviewed these laws have ruled that they violate the constitution. It's not just the courts telling these lawmakers they are wrong. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed briefs with courts across the country over the past year, explaining how these laws violate the freedom of speech of young people, as protected by the First Amendment.

How it connects

Related across sources

Guidance Guidelines 03/2022 on Deceptive design patterns in social media platform interfaces: how to recognise and avoid them EDPB Case Law Meta Platforms v noyb CJEU Case Law GC and Others v CNIL CJEU Literature If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? Ten improvements for the upcoming tenth anniversary of the General Data Protection Regulation Computer law & security review Guidance Guidelines 07/2022 on certification as a tool for transfers EDPB Literature GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation on Sites Requiring Accessibility Innovative STEM Education

Full text

In ten different states, there are lawmakers who believe they can pass laws that prohibit young people from accessing social media, or that require them to obtain parental consent before logging in. Fortunately, almost all courts that have reviewed these laws have ruled that they are unconstitutional. It's not just the courts telling these lawmakers they are wrong. The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has filed legal documents with courts across the country over the past year, explaining how these laws violate the constitutional rights of young people to express themselves and access information online. In the process, these laws also restrict the rights of adults and put the privacy and data security of everyone at risk. Minors have long had the same constitutional rights as adults: the right to talk about politics, create art, comment on the news, discuss or practice religion, and more. The internet has simply amplified their ability to speak, organize, and find community. While these state laws vary in scope, most share two key characteristics. First, they require social media services to...

This content has been automatically translated using machine translation. The original version is available in the source language.

This content was automatically translated using machine translation. The original version is available in the source language.

Similar Content