HB 1229 is an unconstitutional attempt to ban social media use for minors fourteen and under while mandating age verification and parental consent for fifteen and sixteen year olds — exposing Louisiana to litigation it will almost certainly lose, just as courts have already struck down nearly identical provisions in Ohio, Arkansas and Louisiana itself. The bill’s sweeping age verification regime would force platforms to collect government IDs, biometric data and financial information from all users, centralizing sensitive personal data in commercial databases and creating a honeypot for predators and criminals — actively endangering the very children it claims to protect. HB 1229 substitutes the Legislature’s judgment for that of Louisiana families and strips parents of their fundamental right to direct their children’s upbringing without government interference.
NetChoice Testimony in Opposition to Louisiana HB 1229: Unconstitutional Violation of Louisianans’ Free Speech Rights
April 21, 2026
Louisiana House Commerce Committee
Chair Deshotel and members of the committee,
On behalf of NetChoice, a trade association working to make the internet safe for free enterprise and free expression, we write in opposition to Louisiana House Bill 1229, which would ban social media use for individuals fourteen years of age and younger, and mandate parental consent and age verification for those fifteen and sixteen years old. As written, HB 1229 suffers from significant constitutional flaws:
- HB 1229 is unconditional under the First Amendment,
- It would put Louisiana residents’ privacy and data at risk, leaving them vulnerable to breaches and crime and
- The bill violates parental rights.
While intended to improve child mental health outcomes and protect child safety, goals which NetChoice and our members share, an unconstitutional law helps no one. Several other states have attempted to enact similar pieces of legislation, and numerous have been blocked in court. Other nations, including Iran and Australia, have also taken steps to curtail online speech. But unlike citizens of those countries who have little protection from government mandates, Americans of all ages are protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. NetChoice members have taken issues of teen safety seriously and, in recent years, have rolled out numerous new features, settings, parental tools and protections to better empower parents and assist in monitoring their children’s use of social media. We ask that you oppose HB 1229 and use this opportunity to jumpstart a larger conversation about how to best protect children online while protecting the constitutional rights of all Louisianans.
HB 1229 Violates the First Amendment
The First Amendment expressly protects the rights of minors as well as adults. The Supreme Court has consistently affirmed this principle. While the Court ruled in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025) that age verification could be required for platforms hosting content already illegal for minors — namely pornography — that was a narrow holding tied to a narrowly specific category of material. However, HB 1229 casts a far wider net, restricting minors’ access to constitutionally protected speech and free expression on general-purpose social media platforms. Courts have not looked favorably upon such broad restrictions. Indeed, similar state-level efforts have been permanently enjoined in Ohio, Arkansas and blocked in numerous other jurisdictions.
As it happens, NetChoice challenged a similar law right here in Louisiana: Act 456. The law, originally SB 162, would have required social media age verification, parental consent and placed restrictions on advertisements. NetChoice succeeded in obtaining a preliminary injunction against the law and then it was struck down in full in December of 2025. HB 1229 attempts to enact provisions that have already been ruled unconstitutional here in Louisiana while tacking on provisions that are even more violative of the First Amendment. In the landmark free speech case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the Supreme Court ruled against a ban on violent video games in the state of California, finding that such a ban–even with a parental consent exception-violated the First Amendment. HB 1229 is no different and would be destined for a similar fate.
HB 1229 is a Privacy Problem Dressed Up as a Solution
By requiring social media platforms to determine the age of their users and obtain verified parental consent for minors aged fourteen and fifteen, platforms would essentially be required to collect, process and store sensitive personal information about Louisiana residents — young and old. Platforms may need to collect government issued ID’s, biometric data and even credit card information from every user, adults and children alike. Rather than shielding minors from online threats, this approach places vast amounts of personally identifiable information in one place, creating exactly the kind of target that data thieves, child predators and other bad actors actively seek out.
Louisiana families deserve better than a law that purports to protect their children while quietly building a honeypot of their most sensitive data. Scammers, predators and other criminals go to great lengths to secure access to this type of information to prey on kids. Users who value their privacy, particularly victims of domestic violence, political dissidents and simply privacy-conscious individuals, would be forced to choose between anonymity and access to constitutionally protected speech and expression. This bill also has the potential to push young people toward less regulated and more dangerous online spaces that fly under the radar of authorities.
HB 1229 Violates Parental Rights
Louisiana has always prided itself on the strength of its families and the role of parents in raising their children. HB 1229, despite framing itself as a tool for parental empowerment, in practice replaces family decision-making with a one-size-fits-all government mandate. Many Louisiana parents have carefully determined that their teenagers can responsibly use social media with appropriate guidance, while others have taken the opposite approach of not allowing their children to utilize social media. That is their right as parents. Regardless of family decisions, parents—not the government—have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children. This bill eliminates that choice for families who would permit their thirteen or fourteen-year-old to use these platforms and substitutes the Legislature’s judgment for their own – a displacement of parental authority by government degree.
Some might say that such a decision is still available to parents under the bill, only that those who choose to disallow their children from using social media are given the tools to enforce that decision. This is false. In practice, it is the government actively preferencing one of these choices and punishing the families that do not prevent their children from accessing social media. Today, a parent can freely choose to let their kids engage with social media. Under HB 1229, all of the parental tools remain the same, but in order for a parent to let their children remain online, they have to sign away their privacy and their data security. That’s not parental empowerment; it’s government overreach.
Conclusion
NetChoice shares the goal of the legislation and its sponsors: to protect children from harmful content online. We support law enforcement efforts to investigate, prosecute and imprison child abusers who use social media to prey on minors. NetChoice supports giving law enforcement the tools and funding to put child abusers behind bars, but infringing on the First Amendment rights of Louisianans does not accomplish this. Censorship is not child safety; infringing on parental rights only grows Big Government, and potentially exposing private data to bad actors actively harms children. We respectfully urge the legislature to oppose HB 1229. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Tyler Fields
Government Affairs Associate, NetChoice (The views of NetChoice expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of all NetChoice members.)
NetChoice is a trade association that works to protect free expression and promote free enterprise online.