Social Media Bans: Balancing the Rights of Youth, Parents, and Governments

From TikTok dance challenges to live footage of global events, social media is an information distribution powerhouse, inevitably occupying the phones of all age demographics. However, this status is tainted by the widespread concern over its overconsumption primarily among younger people. In 2023, the National Institutes of Health published a research report that hypothesized strong correlations between social media usage and youth mental health concerns. As a result, many state legislatures have felt compelled to enact legislation restricting social media accessibility. State-issued bans that target minors between the ages of 13 and 18 infringe on the Fourth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which protects parental rights to make decisions relating to their children’s care and education. In addition, state governments’ efforts to restrict social media usage in education reveal viewpoint discrimination that threatens free speech rather than effectively addressing youth mental health challenges.

There have already been successful efforts limiting accessibility to social media in Republican-leaning states such as Florida and Utah. According to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, minors who are under thirteen years old must obtain parental consent to use social media. However, state bans have placed even higher age restrictions. In 2023, Utah passed S.B. 152 (Social Media Regulation Amendments) which mandates that minors under 18 must obtain parental consent to access social media platforms. A year later, Florida passed House Bill 3 which prohibits children under fourteen years old from creating new social media accounts while also terminating the existing accounts of users under fourteen.

These state bans restrict a powerful form of speech for youth. In a prior Supreme Court case, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), a majority opinion delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia held that California’s legislation to prohibit the sale and rental of “violent” video games to minors limited the communication of ideas. This ruling set a crucial legal precedent of recognizing minors’ First Amendment rights in entertainment services, whether it be video games, social media, protected books, plays, or movies. Similar to video games, social media allows individuals to thrive and participate in new environments by contributing to a wider community, learning new skills, or simply having fun. Scalia’s argument underlines social media’s vital role in facilitating free speech among youth and offers compelling evidence that the recent state bans are unconstitutional.

Furthermore, Justice Scalia emphasized that California’s attempt to restrict video games overstepped families’ freedom to guide their children’s education and unlawfully expanded government authority. In a past interpretation of the Fourth Amendment’s Due Process Clause Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), the Supreme Court ruled that the Compulsory Education Act of 1922—requiring educational instruction for children between the ages of eight and sixteen within the public school system—violated the liberty of parents to direct their children’s education. This directly parallels the ongoing issue between state regulations and parental authority over their children’s social media usage. Parents and guardians, rather than a generalized school system, should have the constitutional right to decide when to grant their children access to social media. Their proximity and understanding of their children’s responsibility allow them to recognize factors beyond age that indicate whether or not a minor is ready to use social media, such as the ability to read social cues, impulse control, and vulnerability to criticism. Depending on their judgment of the child’s level of maturity, parents should hold the constitutional right to direct their children’s social media usage in education.

Without these considerations, state governments have found the narrative of social media’s detrimental effects on youth mental health to be extremely convincing. These governments, which primarily hold conservative beliefs, use mental health challenges as a scapegoat to characterize social media as “unsafe” or “untrustworthy.” In a statement from the Office of Florida Governor Ron Desantis, House Speaker Paul Renner states how the internet, specifically social media, has become a “dark alley for our children” and has led to higher rates of depression, self-harm, and suicide. Desantis’s office is one of several state governments engaging in viewpoint discrimination by scrutinizing the political opinions of their opponents. This perspective pushes a narrow narrative about solely the negative implications of social media and excludes its potential benefits.

Notably, viewpoint discrimination in social media was ruled unconstitutional in the legal precedent of O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier (2023). The court held that the defendants, Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T. J. Zane, had violated the First Amendment when they blocked other users from accessing content on their public social media accounts. The defendants, who represented Poway’s Board of Trustees, deleted critical comments on their social media posts and blocked vocal parents of children enrolled in the California school district. This ruling supports the idea that state legislature should allow freedom of speech on social media, even when there is a conflict of political interest. In Florida, social media restrictions such as House Bill 3 follow a stream of legislation during Desantis’s governance that engages in viewpoint discrimination by pushing youth toward a conservative political ideology.

Desantis’s record of viewpoint discrimination spans beyond social media to other forms of entertainment and education. In the past, Ron Desantis has consistently passed legislation such as the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill (House Bill 1557) and House Bill 1069 to prohibit discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms. He has claimed that such classroom instruction is being used to “sexualize” the students. Furthermore, these bills have led to evicting books and classroom curriculums of diverse thought; a PEN America report stated that Florida is responsible for 3,135 of the over 4,000 school books banned in the 2023-2024 school year. Analogous to social media restrictions, these legislations restrict the flow of ideas surrounding race, gender, and sexuality in a classroom setting. This perception lacks consideration for students who may have the curiosity to explore their own identities and those who seek refuge in affinity groups.

In schools today, social media functions as a powerful source of educational content as it provides information on ideas such as race, gender, sexuality, or other diverse discourses flowing outside a student’s family or geographical region. With the transition to online spaces post-COVID-19, many students’ personal and academic lives have become highly integrated with technology. Social media is crucial in opening avenues for younger demographics to reach information otherwise inaccessible from the safety of their homes. With more restrictive measures, youth will find less safe and regulated platforms that serve similar functions; state legislation only creates another layer of information censorship.

Furthermore, studies suggest that moderate use of social media does not always lead to negative mental health in minors. In 2022, Psychologist Jonathan Haidt testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming that while there are consistent correlations between social media usage and mental health issues, the “size of the relationship is disputed”: only excessive usage beyond three or four hours a day revealed strong correlations to negative mental health. Considering the widespread benefits of free speech on social media platforms, issuing state-wide bans will only heighten poor mental health among youth by isolating them from accessing vital communities, education, and entertainment. Both considerations of constitutionality and mental health seem to support the notion that state-led social media bans do more harm than good.

A deeper analysis of how the digital world impacts youth reveals alternative legal solutions other than restrictions that can foster safer, more positive experiences for students on social media. Ensuring the safety of digital environments for minors requires multiple parties to be involved; a study led by the social media platform MySpace in 2008 revealed that a combination of technologies including age verification systems, parental oversight, education, law enforcement, social services, and governmental policies could address negative mental health effects stemming from social media. These studies suggest that collaboration with school systems, parents, and social media platforms can prevent harmful and extreme social media usage, allowing state governments to effectively address mental health concerns without breaching the First Amendment rights of the youth.

The legal concern about social media bans juggles government powers, parental authority over their children’s education and well-being, and First Amendment rights. The current dominant narrative surrounding social media and its influence on youth mental health challenges is detrimental to the legislative process as it ignores other factors that can curb poor mental health. While it’s inevitable that digital technologies are increasingly present in our daily lives, state governments should look to alternative comprehensive solutions to prevent excessive social media usage in youth from negatively impacting their mental health. The result would involve a meaningful collaboration between educators, parents, psychologists, social media companies, legislators, and most importantly, the youth, whose ability to exercise free speech should be cherished and protected.

Edited by Yunah Kwon