Permanent injunction granted December 2025; Louisiana appealing
Louisiana Act 456 (Social Media Age Checks)
BadDefeatedLouisiana Act 456 (2023)
Louisiana, United States
Louisiana, United StatesStruck down; state appealingMedium threat
Louisiana's social media age-check law, permanently struck down in December 2025. The state is appealing.
Latest update
Summary judgment for NetChoice; permanent injunction (NetChoice v. Murrill)
Current position
Struck down; state appealing
What it does
Passed in 2023 alongside the porn-site law, Act 456 required social media platforms with more than 5 million users to make reasonable efforts to verify account holders' ages, with parental consent required for minors. In NetChoice v. Murrill, a federal judge granted summary judgment against it in December 2025: conditioning access to protected speech on handing over government ID violates the First Amendment, and the law was too vague to survive anyway. The injunction is permanent. Attorney General Murrill says Louisiana will appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
Why it matters
Louisiana runs the full playbook in one state: the porn-site age law the Supreme Court upheld, this social media age law the courts killed, and an app store age law waiting to start. Where the age check goes next depends on which of those three venues survives, and the appeal puts this one in front of the same Fifth Circuit that revived Texas's app store law.
Our take
A court finally said it plainly: making people surrender ID to speak online is unconstitutional. Louisiana's answer is to appeal, and its backup plan is already law at the app store level. The lesson states are learning is not to stop checking IDs; it is to move the checkpoint somewhere courts have not looked yet.
Timeline
Summary judgment for NetChoice; permanent injunction (NetChoice v. Murrill)
LatestVotes
- Senate — Final passage (37 to 0)
- House — Final passage (76 to 18)