A federal appeals court cleared Georgia to enforce a law requiring social media platforms to verify ages and get parental consent for users under 16.

The ruling has direct implications for East Cobb families. Cobb County School District already adopted a stricter cell phone ban for K-8 students under Georgia's Distraction-Free Education Act, according to WSB Radio. Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said the district would comply but pushed back on extending the ban to high schools. Senate Bill 351 now adds a layer outside the classroom, putting requirements on the platforms themselves.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, Oct. 15, vacated a preliminary injunction that had blocked SB 351, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. A three-judge panel found that NetChoice, a trade group representing Meta, YouTube, Reddit, X and Pinterest, had not shown it was likely to win its challenge to the law.

Under SB 351, covered platforms must make "commercially reasonable efforts" to determine a user's age, according to WJCL. If a user is younger than 16, the platform must confirm parental permission. The law also limits platforms from using minors' personal information for targeted advertising, though age and location data may still be used. Services used primarily for email, streaming, shopping, gaming, video conferencing, cloud storage and education are exempt.

Companies face potential fines for failing to meet the verification requirements, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr called the decision "… a major win for Georgia families and a huge blow to those who would stand in the way of commonsense solutions to protect our kids," according to Fox 5 Atlanta. In its appellate brief, the state linked social media use among minors to depression, anxiety, self-harm and body-image concerns, according to WJCL.

Georgia lawmakers passed SB 351 in 2024. Gov. Brian Kemp signed it despite a request from NetChoice that he veto it, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. NetChoice sued two months before the law was set to take effect. Judge Amy Totenberg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement.

The appeals court opinion, written by Judge Kevin C. Newsom, found that NetChoice had standing to sue but had not provided enough evidence about the full range of platforms the law covers. Different platforms host different types of content, the judges wrote, and their First Amendment treatment may differ. Newsom wrote that social media websites do not all engage exclusively in "fully protected" speech, according to Courthouse News.

The case is not over. The ruling does not settle whether SB 351 is constitutional, and the case returns to a U.S. district judge in Atlanta for further proceedings. NetChoice litigation center director Paul Taske said in a statement that the court "notably did not hold that SB 351 is constitutional," and the group said it is evaluating its next legal steps, according to Courthouse News.

The decision came one day after the same court vacated a similar injunction against Florida's law banning social media accounts for children under 14, Courthouse News reported. NetChoice has challenged similar laws in nearly a dozen other states.

Georgia also joined 46 other states in a lawsuit against Meta that produced a proposed $17 billion settlement, WABE reported. Georgia stands to receive about $100 million to $135 million under that deal, which would require Meta to add child-safety features including daily time limits and age-appropriate content controls on Instagram and Facebook.