(The Center Square) – Georgia is the latest state facing a legal challenge over a law that requires social media companies to verify a user’s age.
Lawmakers said Senate Bill 351, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2024, is designed to protect minors from cyberbullying and bad online actors.
“The health and safety of our children should always be a parent’s number one priority,” Lt. Governor Burt Jones said in a statement after the bill’s signing. “I am proud to have prioritized this legislation to help protect our children online and combat the very serious epidemic of cyberbullying which plagues this country.”
But the bill could have the opposite effect from lawmakers’ intention of protecting minors and their families, said Paul Taske, NetChoice Associate Director of Litigation in an interview with The Center Square. The company, a trade organization representing apps like Facebook and Instagram, is challenging the law in a case filed in the U.S. Northern District of Georgia on Thursday.
“I think what we said form the onset of all these cases to all of these state legislatures making this argument is that we think it’s really important to protect minors and everyone online, but we think in order to accomplish that goal, lawmakers have to do it with the First Amendment in mind, Taske said. “Unconstitutional laws won’t protect anyone because they’ll end up being struck down in court.”
The company has successfully challenged similar laws in Arkansas and Ohio with judges have siding with NetChoice, saying the laws violate the First Amendment. Lawsuits are also pending in Tennessee and Louisiana.
The Georgia law requires children under the age of 16 to get parental consent before using social media sites. The requirement could give companies a “honeypot” of data, according to Taske. He cited an Experian study that shows 25 children will experience identity theft before the age of 18.
“When the government is mandating that another source of information be collected and a repository created of this sensitive information to verify people’s ages, their identities and their relationships to their parents, that creates a ‘treasure trove’ or a ‘honeypot,’ whatever you want to call it of sensitive information,” Taske said.
Taske said if lawmakers are concerned about online safety, they can take a couple of different approaches.
“Law enforcement are of course the best line of defense for going after criminals and lawbreakers in any realm of criminal activity and that doesn’t change just become it’s happening online,” Taske said. “Whether that’s additional funding for monitoring or setting up special task forces for dealing with cybercrime.”
Education is also a “powerful tool,” Taske said.
“In addition to educating the younger users in the classroom, we think that it would be excellent for the government to allocate some funds to educate parents as well,” he said.
