Lawsuit filed over Nebraska law requiring age verification, parental consent for social media

NetChoice, an association of social media companies including TikTok and Meta, has sued Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers over a social media age verification law set to go into effect in July.

The lawsuit was filed last week and alleges that the Parental Rights in Social Media Act, which was passed by the Nebraska Legislature in 2025, violates the First Amendment rights of minors by “significantly curtailing (and in some cases, eliminating) their ability to engage in core First Amendment activities on many of the most popular online services.”

The Social Media Act is set to go into effect on July 1 and will require all social media companies to verify a user’s age before an account can be created. The law does not establish a specific form of age verification aside from a “reasonable age verification method” that can be performed by the company or a third party.

Minors could only create social media accounts with “express parental consent.” That consent would come in the form of parental age verification and a form signed by the parent and submitted to the social media company. It would also require parents to be able to revoke consent. Social media companies would be required under the act to establish a dashboard where they can access all posts, interactions and private messages from the minor’s account.

Hilgers, as the attorney general, is tasked with enforcement. Companies or platforms that violate the terms could face a fine of up to $2,500 per violation.

Most major social media companies are members of NetChoice, which frequently launches legal challenges against state laws that restrict access to social media platforms. Its members include Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram; TikTok; Snapchat; X (formerly Twitter); Reddit; Google; and YouTube.

NetChoice claims in the lawsuit that the “severe burdens” imposed by verifying the age of every user and their parents could force some social media companies to “restrict Nebraskans from accessing their websites altogether.”

“Compliance would require, among other things, systems for collecting or verifying user age; identifying Nebraska users; obtaining, authenticating, recording, and revoking parental consent; verifying parental identity and age; creating parental-access dashboards; exposing posts, responses, and messages to parents; maintaining records sufficient to defend against enforcement; and redesigning privacy, security, trust-and-safety, and user-support workflows,” the association wrote in the complaint. “These requirements would also force covered services to collect or process additional sensitive information from users and parents, creating privacy and security concerns.”

The lawsuit challenges the age verification, parental consent and parental monitoring provisions of the act. NetChoice is seeking a permanent injunction declaring those portions of the act unconstitutional and barring its enforcement. NetChoice has successfully challenged similar state laws in recent years, including in Arkansas and Louisiana.

Nebraska’s Parental Rights in Social Media Act passed in May 2025 on a 46-3 vote. It was introduced by Sen. Tanya Storer at the request of Gov. Jim Pillen. Storer said in a statement at the time that the act was a “major step in freeing our children from the claws of big tech.”

The case has been assigned to Senior U.S. District Court Judge John Gerrard, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office did not immediately comment on the legal challenge, and Hilgers has not yet filed a response to the complaint.