In the rush to protect children from social media’s harms, American lawmakers have found an unlikely constitutional soulmate: the French Constitutional Council. France’s highest constitutional authority recently struck down a sweeping law that would have banned social media for minors under 15. The ruling was decisive, declaring that the law’s blanket approach fundamentally violated rights to free expression and privacy.
For U.S. lawmakers in Florida, Arkansas and Utah, where federal courts have spent the Past year blocking similar age-based bans, the message from Paris should serve as a flashing red light. When the First Amendment and the French Constitution agree that a digital dragnet goes too far, it is time to rethink the approach.
Over my career, I have watched the regulatory pendulum swing wildly. Today, free expression is under unprecedented fire.
The French Constitutional Council recognized this danger, ruling that an indiscriminate ban on social media access is not an “appropriate, necessary and proportionate” method for protecting children. You simply cannot mandate a blackout on digital communication platforms without severely infringing on fundamental expressive rights.
In the United States, federal courts are echoing this sentiment. When a federal judge permanently blocked Arkansas’ Act 689 in NetChoice v. Griffin, a law requiring age verification and parental consent for minors, the court noted that the state “takes a hatchet to adults’ and minors’ protected speech alike, though the Constitution demands it use a scalpel.” Indeed, banning access to lawful speech based on age is a blunt instrument that fails constitutional scrutiny.
Furthermore, the French decision sharply criticized the law for giving parents zero discretion to authorize their children’s use of certain platforms. This gets to the heart of a profound contradiction in the American legislative push. Lawmakers in Florida, where legislation halted by a federal judge had attempted to ban accounts for kids under 14, often frame these bills as championing parental rights. Yet in practice, blanket bans strip parents of their agency.
A 14-year-old seeking an online support group for a rare medical condition, or a budding entrepreneur starting a digital business, is treated the same as a 10-year-old mindlessly scrolling algorithmic feeds. The state decides what is best, and parents are legally barred from making nuanced decisions tailored to their families. Federal courts have rightly reminded states that parents, not government officials, are best positioned to navigate how their kids use technology.
Perhaps the most operationally devastating point the French court made concerns the mechanics of enforcement. The Council observed that to successfully ban users under 15, platforms must logically verify the age of every single user, without exception. Because the law failed to provide safeguards for how it would collect and manage proof of age, it violated the constitutional right to privacy.
This same age-verification trap is stalling legislation across America. Mandating that users upload a driver’s license or submit to a biometric facial scan forces adults to surrender highly sensitive identifying data to tech companies. It creates massive digital honeypots, leaving every internet user vulnerable to hackers and data brokers. Ironically, lawmakers who have spent years warning the public about Big Tech’s data-mining practices are now passing laws that force citizens to hand those same companies their government-issued IDs.
The impulse to protect young people in an increasingly complex media ecosystem is undeniably noble. We need real solutions that address algorithmic harms without burning down the village. Using a sledgehammer to strip citizens of their digital rights is a cure worse than the disease. We cannot defend free expression across the political spectrum if our default regulatory posture is censorship and surveillance.
When the French Constitutional Council and American federal judges reach the same conclusion about the dangers of state-mandated social media bans, it is a rare moment of global legal harmony. Lawmakers should listen.
Instead of unconstitutional bans and invasive age verification mandates, they should focus on comprehensive data privacy laws, greater algorithmic transparency, and empowering parents with better tools. The digital public square belongs to everyone, and safeguarding our children within it must never come at the expense of our foundational democratic liberties.
Stuart N. Brotman is the digital media laureate and distinguished senior fellow
at The Media Institute.
He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
