CINCINNATI, Ohio—Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit will hear arguments in NetChoice’s cases against Ohio and Tennessee’s social media age verification laws, which violate the online speech rights, privacy and security, and parental rights of their citizens.
Hearing information:
Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse
100 East Fifth Street, 6th Floor East Courtroom
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Begins at 9:00 AM Eastern Time
Livestream will be available here.
“States cannot ignore the First Amendment’s demands simply because the speech in question is accessible online rather than in a book. Governments cannot condition the access of lawful speech upon the surrender of private, sensitive information,” said Paul Taske, Co-Director of the NetChoice Litigation Center.
“These laws, which hold online expression hostage, are unconstitutional as courts across the country have consistently found. Accordingly, they fail to advance the government’s objective in keeping users safe. An unconstitutional law protects no one. We’re confident the Sixth Circuit will agree.”
These laws condition all Tennessee and Ohio citizens’ ability to access and publish information online on whether they are willing to jeopardize their privacy and security. NetChoice obtained a permanent block of Ohio’s law in April 2025, in which the judge declared it unconstitutional. The state appealed. In June 2025, a court denied NetChoice’s request for a preliminary injunction against Tennessee’s law, without addressing constitutional merits of it. NetChoice appealed.
NetChoice has permanent injunctions against similar laws in Arkansas and Louisiana.
Some noteworthy points from the District Court’s ruling declaring Ohio’s law unconstitutional and permanently blocking in NetChoice v. Yost:
- “The ‘loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.’”
- “In every application to a covered website, the [Ohio] Act raises the same First Amendment issues.”
- “Because freedom of speech is ‘the indispensable condition[ ] of nearly every other form of freedom’…the First Amendment ‘bars the government from dictating what we see or read or speak or hear’…and protects ‘the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read and freedom of thought.’”
- “Minors’ access to information is essential to their growth into productive members of our democratic public sphere.”
- These issues, “[reside] at the intersection of two unquestionable rights: the rights of children to ‘a significant measure of’ freedom of speech and expression under the First Amendment, and the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children free from unnecessary governmental intrusion.” The government may not impede these “unquestionable rights” by branding a law as a safety measure.
- “The State’s approach is an untargeted one, as parents must only give one-time approval for the creation of an account, and parents and platforms are otherwise not required to protect against any of the specific dangers that social media might pose.”
- “Protecting children’s well-being is a laudable, perhaps even achievable, goal. But Ohio’s imperative is to achieve this goal through legislation that is constitutional.”
Find case resources for NetChoice v. Yost (Ohio) here. Find case resources for NetChoice v. Skrmetti (Tennessee) here.
Please contact press@netchoice.org with inquiries.
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