Governments around the world are rushing to address the youth mental health crisis, with social media squarely in their sights. From Capitol Hill to Paris to Sydney, lawmakers are proposing or enacting strict age restrictions that would ban teenagers from creating social media profiles. But are these heavy-handed mandates the right approach?
A recent white paper that I co-authored with Lura Forcum and Julian Morris, published by the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE), suggests these sweeping laws rest on weak evidence, are unlikely to work, and conflict with free speech values. Below, I examine recent attempts to restrict social media access by age in the United States and abroad, and explain why they may face insurmountable legal challenges.
Age Gates Meet the First Amendment
In the United States, lawmakers have aggressively pursued age-based bans. A prominent recent example is the bipartisan 16 & Up Social Media Act, introduced by Reps. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) and Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.). The bill would establish a national standard prohibiting children under 16 from maintaining social media accounts.
The bill aims to protect children under 16 from allegedly addictive platform designs, but it likely fails First Amendment scrutiny. Laws restricting access to protected speech generally must satisfy strict scrutiny—that is, use the least restrictive means to serve a compelling government interest. As the U.S. Supreme Court put it in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, “[e]ven where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply.”
In Brown, the court found that studies showing effects “both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media” could not establish a compelling interest in barring minors from protected speech—in that case, violent video games. Evidence of a “causal link” between social media use and adolescent harm is similarly lacking here.
A 2025 meta-analysis led by Christopher Ferguson pooled 46 studies of social media’s effects on adolescent mental health and found a correlation of 0.061, below the level researchers normally consider meaningful. A Cambridge review of 143 studies covering 1.1 million adolescents put the figure at 0.12, suggesting social media might explain about 1.4% of the variation in anxiety and depression. “Might” matters here, because the relationship runs at least partly in reverse. Research suggests that social media use did not predict later depression, but depression predicted later social media use among girls.
Just as importantly, banning children under 16 from creating social media profiles is not the least restrictive means of protecting them online. In Brown, the court expressed “doubt[] that punishing third parties for conveying protected speech to children just in case their parents disapprove of that speech is a proper governmental means of aiding parental authority.” Lawmakers could instead educate parents and minors about staying safe on social media, including how to use widely available safety tools and other practical means.
Federal courts have already blocked less burdensome laws requiring parental consent before minors can create social media profiles in Arkansas, Louisiana, Utah, Ohio, and Georgia. That leaves the 16 & Up Act with a steep climb under strict scrutiny.
The bill’s supporters would likely point to a recent 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion lifting a preliminary injunction against Florida’s HB 3.That law requires age verification and parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create accounts on social media sites with “addictive features.” The 11th Circuit applied intermediate scrutiny—a less demanding standard—after accepting the argument that HB 3 regulates the form of expression rather than its subject matter, making it content-neutral.
Under that standard, the court found a substantial government interest in protecting minors from platforms with addictive features. It also found that the age-verification and parental-consent requirements for 14- and 15-year-olds imposed no greater burden than necessary to serve that interest. Litigation in the case remains ongoing.
Courts remain split at this point on whether autoplay, ephemeral content (posts that disappear after a set time), notifications, and infinite scroll are product-design features subject to commercial regulation or protected editorial decisions about how to present speech. In Moody v. NetChoice, the Supreme Court held that “[d]eciding on the third-party speech that will be included in or excluded from a compilation—and then organizing and presenting the included items—is expressive activity of its own.” Treating laws targeting allegedly addictive features as content-neutral therefore arguably fits uncomfortably with the Court’s findings in Moody.
A blanket ban on social media profiles for anyone under 16 appears unlikely to survive scrutiny under current Supreme Court precedent. But lawmakers keep trying, and lower courts remain split. The Supreme Court may eventually have to settle the question.
Liberté, Égalité, No Blanket Ban
Age-based bans also face at least some legal hurdles beyond the United States. France’s Constitutional Council recently considered a challenge to a similar law that would “prohibit[] access by minors of [under] fifteen years of age to online social networking services provided by online platforms.” In a somewhat surprising move, the council struck it down.
The council found that a blanket ban failed to account for individual circumstances, parental judgment, or the risks of particular services:
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In this regard, neither the contested provisions nor any other provision sets out the conditions under which the holders of parental authority or the legal representative of the minor, duly informed of the potential risks and safeguards presented by the services concerned, may, in the child’s best interests and in the exercise of their duties under the law, decide to lift the prohibition, limit its scope or authorise access to certain services.
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Thus, the prohibition established does not give rise to any particular assessment of the risk to the minor, taking into account in particular his age, his degree of maturity, his family situation as well as the nature of the service concerned.
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Therefore, the legislator could not, without disregarding freedom of expression and communication, institute a general prohibition which had the effect of depriving minors of their freedom of access to many online communication services, without consideration of either the situation of the minor or the risks specific to these services.
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In these circumstances, the contested provisions infringe upon this freedom in a manner that is not appropriate, necessary and proportionate to the objective pursued.
The council also identified a problem that age-verification mandates tend to bring along for the ride. Everyone—including adults—would have to prove their age to access protected speech, without adequate legal safeguards:
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By prohibiting access for any minor under fifteen years of age to certain online services, the contested provisions imply, in themselves, that any person, even an adult, must prove their age before accessing them.
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By failing to determine the conditions and limits within which it must be justified, the legislator has not provided the legal guarantees necessary to ensure compliance with these constitutional requirements.
France’s free speech protections are, it should be noted, narrower than those of the First Amendment. Even so, the Constitutional Council rightly found that the current evidence does not justify a complete ban of teenagers from social media.
Australia’s Great Barrier to Speech
Australia’s similar law bans users under 16 from creating social media accounts. It faces a legal challenge on the grounds that it “impermissibly burdens the implied freedom of political communication” of minors subject to the ban—a freedom derived from Australia’s Constitution.
Data suggest that, prior to the ban, minors used social media for political communication, including sharing news and opinions on the issues of the day. The plaintiffs in the case cite a study finding that:
Of the 26% of young Australians who reported they had been “significantly affected” by the ban: 51% said they were receiving less news; 47% reported less access to world news and events; 45% experienced less opportunity to share views or take action; 42% reported less access to local news and events; 41% reported less access to news about issues they care about; and 40% reported having fewer discussions about news with others.
In its brief, the government acknowledges “scientific uncertainty about causal links between social media use and mental-health outcomes, as well as their extent and likelihood…” Yet it argues that the “existence of credible risks of harm and credible causal pathways between account-related design features and those risks justifies Parliament’s decision to enact a precautionary protective measure before scientific consensus establishes that it will be effective.”
The High Court of Australia will have to decide whether that uncertainty justifies severely burdening minors’ freedom to engage in political communication on social media. There is good reason to think it does not.
Give Kids Some Space, Not Another Gate
Protecting kids online is a valid and urgent priority, but government bans on social media aren’t the answer.
A more nuanced approach would give parents better voluntary tools to set limits and add pauses to social media use, establish independent industry certifications for responsible app design, and teach kids how better to handle online risks.
Policymakers and parents also need to address unfortunate trends in the offline world. The steady erosion of children’s freedom to play and socialize independently has coincided with their turn to social media. Restoring opportunities for in-person, unsupervised play might do far more for adolescent mental health than banning its digital substitutes.
It’s time to move past the political theater of age-gating and give families practical tools that preserve the benefits of connectivity while helping kids stay safe. Kids need room to grow, online and off.
