USA – GEORGIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Jason Loring, Andrew Lee and Lara Sevener, Jones Walker LLP
District of Georgia granted a motion for a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law’s core plat - form provisions ( NetChoice v Carr , 789 F. Supp. 3d 1200 (N.D. Ga. 2025)). The case has emerged as a leading decision on the constitutionality of state social media age restrictions. NetChoice, whose members include major online platforms, has challenged similar laws across the country; only Tennessee’s survived a preliminary injunction motion, and only on irreparable harm grounds rather than First Amendment merits. Judge Totenberg held that SB 351 was unconstitu - tional on its face. The law’s “primary downfall”, she wrote, was that it created a content-based restriction by distinguishing between platforms hosting user- generated content and those publishing provider- generated content, applying its requirements to the former while exempting the latter. The court’s illus - trations are pointed: SB 351 would apply to a user posting news on X but not to the New York Times posting to its own liveblog; it would cover the Georgia Bulldogs Reddit forum but not Barstool Sports. That asymmetry triggered strict scrutiny, which the law failed. The court further found that the law burdened anonymous speech for all Georgians by conditioning access to major digital public forums on the provision of government identification, and that the age verifi - cation requirements created an independent chilling effect by forcing collection and storage of sensitive personal information (notably, while the act requires deletion of parental consent data after verification, no comparable deletion obligation applies to the broader age verification data collected from users). “Because of the enormous burdens imposed on the First Amendment rights of children, adults, and social media platforms”, Judge Totenberg wrote, “even the state’s serious interest here cannot justify SB 351 under the First Amendment’s rigorous standards”. The court was explicit that the deficiency was one of constitutional tailoring, not legislative purpose. District court proceedings have been administratively closed pending the interlocutory appeal, which Georgia filed on 17 July 2025. The appeal and Free Speech Coalition v Paxton The day after Judge Totenberg’s ruling, the US Supreme Court decided Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v Paxton , 606 U.S. 461 (2025), upholding Texas’s
age-verification law for websites whose content is predominantly sexually explicit material harmful to minors under intermediate scrutiny. Paxton , however, does not map cleanly onto SB 351. The Texas law targeted sites where more than one-third of content is sexually explicit material already categorically unpro - tected as to minors and was specifically structured to require age verification without retention of users’ identifying information. SB 351 regulates broad-based social media platforms hosting constitutionally pro - tected speech across an unlimited range of subjects. Whether Paxton’s intermediate scrutiny framework extends to general-purpose social media regulation is a question the Supreme Court specifically declined to resolve. Legal commentators are divided, making the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s decision genuinely uncertain and nationally significant. Pending the appeal, SB 351’s platform-facing require - ments remain unenforceable. Social media companies should audit age-assurance capabilities and monitor the docket closely, as a reversal could impose sub - stantial obligations on short notice. The school-level obligations present a different picture: tied to state funding compliance rather than First Amendment platform restrictions, those requirements have been advancing on a separate compliance track. The 1 October 2025 acceptable-use policy deadline has passed; school districts should now be focused on the 1 April 2026, social media policy deadline, which remains operative regardless of the platform injunc - tion’s status. School district counsel should not assume the Eleventh Circuit appeal relieves district obligations under SB 351’s K–12 provisions. Data breach liability: common law takes shape The most consequential Georgia privacy ruling of 2025 came in October, when the Court of Appeals decided Bland v Urology of Greater Atlanta, LLC , 377 Ga. App. 177 (Ga. Ct. App. 2025), the first Georgia appellate decision to recognise a common law duty of care to protect personally identifiable information against foreseeable cybersecurity risks. The case arose from a breach at a Georgia medical practice. Plaintiffs filed a putative class action alleg - ing negligence, breach of implied contract, and relat - ed claims after their personal information (including
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