Where Data Tells the Story
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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced this week that children under 16 in the United Kingdom will be banned from accessing TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and a range of other social media platforms.
Regulation is expected before Christmas 2026. Enforcement begins in spring 2027.
In a similar vein, we investigated the status of social media bans for kids across America.
The map above is based on aggregated data from Wikipedia’s verified state legislative records and shows where the United States stood on the same question as of June 13, 2026.
The picture it shows is fundamentally different.
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Nearly as many states have tried and been stopped as have succeeded.
The mechanism stopping them is the First Amendment.
Courts reviewing age-verification legislation have accepted arguments that requiring users to verify their age before accessing social media constitutes an unconstitutional prior restraint on protected speech.
That argument has worked in federal courts reviewing laws in Texas, Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Ohio.
The same political profile appears across most of the blocked states.
For example, conservative-led legislatures passing child protection legislation, only to see federal courts suspend those laws on free speech grounds.
Legislators intending to restrict minors’ access are producing laws blocked by a constitutional framework designed to protect adults’ access.
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