Georgia Age Verification Law: One Bill, Two Very Different Statutes

Georgia's "age verification law" is really two separate legal requirements created by the same 2024 bill, Senate Bill 351. One, covering adult websites, has been in effect since July 1, 2025, and no court has blocked it. The other, covering social media account creation by minors, was blocked by a federal judge five days before it was set to take effect, but on October 15, 2026 the Eleventh Circuit vacated that injunction and sent the case back to the district court.

Information last verified on 2026-10-18. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

One Bill, Two Chapters: Why Georgia's Law Isn't One Thing

Senate Bill 351, signed April 23, 2024, is formally titled the "Protecting Georgia's Children on Social Media Act of 2024," but it does more than its short title suggests. The bill amended Title 39 of the Georgia Code, the title governing minors, and split its requirements across two chapters that ended up with opposite fates in court. Chapter 5 became the state's adult-content age-verification requirement, O.C.G.A. section 39-5-5. Chapter 6 became its social-media age-verification and parental-consent requirement, O.C.G.A. sections 39-6-1 through 39-6-5. Both were part of one piece of legislation. Only one of them survived its first year unchallenged.

The Adult-Content Requirement: In Effect and Unchallenged

O.C.G.A. section 39-5-5 requires a commercial entity to use reasonable age verification before allowing access to a public website where a "substantial portion," more than 33.33 percent, of the content is material harmful to minors. Acceptable verification methods include a digitized ID card, including a digital copy of a driver's license, another government-issued ID, or any commercially reasonable method that meets or exceeds the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Identity Assurance Level 2 standard, which is the catch-all most commercial verification vendors operate under. The statute bars a verifying entity from retaining a user's identifying information after access is granted, and a user whose information is knowingly retained anyway can sue for resulting damages. Bona fide news organizations and internet, search, and cloud service providers are excluded from coverage.

Enforcement under Chapter 5 works differently from the social-media chapter, and the difference is easy to get backwards. Section 39-5-5(c)(3) sets a fine of up to $10,000 for each violation, an amount determined by the superior court in the county where any affected minor resides, and it lets the Attorney General, the solicitor general, or the district attorney having jurisdiction institute proceedings to impose that fine, within one year of the violation. Chapter 5 contains no notice-and-cure period. The 90 days' notice to cure that is often attributed to Georgia's adult-site rule appears only in the social-media chapter, at O.C.G.A. section 39-6-4(d). A fine is also not the operator's only exposure: section 39-5-5(c)(2) makes a non-complying entity liable to an individual for damages resulting from a minor accessing the material, including court costs and attorneys' fees, and the statute says a fine does not preclude any right of action.

The requirement took effect July 1, 2025. Major adult platforms, including Pornhub's parent company Aylo, chose to go dark in Georgia that same day rather than build a compliant verification flow, according to contemporaneous reporting. NetChoice, the trade association that sued over SB 351's social-media provisions (see below), has said publicly that it is not challenging this section. No lawsuit against O.C.G.A. section 39-5-5 has surfaced in this research.

The Social-Media Requirement: Injunction Vacated on Appeal

O.C.G.A. sections 39-6-1 through 39-6-5 would require social media platforms to verify users' ages and, for account holders under 16, obtain express parental or guardian consent before allowing an account to be created. Consent could be given through written consent, a toll-free call, a videoconference, or a verified digital form, and the statute limits data collection and targeted advertising directed at minors under 16. As enacted, violations carried penalties of up to $2,500, a fraction of the $10,000 cap under the adult-content section, and section 39-6-4 gives the Attorney General exclusive authority to enforce the chapter, bars any private right of action, and requires 90 days' written notice and an opportunity to cure before an enforcement action begins.

Those requirements could not be enforced on schedule, although the Act set July 1, 2025 as the effective date for both chapters. NetChoice, LLC sued Georgia's attorney general in NetChoice v. Carr in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, and U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg granted a preliminary injunction on June 26, 2025, five days before the law's own July 1, 2025 effective date. Judge Totenberg held the social-media provisions were likely unconstitutional, reasoning in part that they drew a content-based distinction between user-generated and provider-generated platforms. Georgia, through Attorney General Chris Carr, immediately appealed to the 11th Circuit (No. 25-12436), and oral argument was held March 10, 2026, in Jacksonville.

On October 15, 2026, the 11th Circuit vacated that preliminary injunction. In a published opinion by Judge Newsom, joined by Judges Luck and Tjoflat, the panel affirmed the district court's holding that NetChoice has associational standing to sue on its members' behalf, but held that NetChoice had not carried the burden a facial First Amendment challenge requires under Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707 (2024), because it had not addressed the full range of SB 351's applications and the record did not permit the weighing Moody calls for. The panel also found no likelihood of success on the vagueness claim, reasoning that the district court had granted relief on a theory NetChoice never pleaded, and none on the Section 230 claim, holding that the statute's advertising restriction regulates what platforms themselves do rather than treating them as the publisher or speaker of someone else's content. The court expressly declined to reach the merits of the First Amendment claim or the remaining preliminary-injunction factors, and it remanded the case to the district court.

That disposition removes the order that had been blocking Chapter 6, but it is not a ruling that SB 351 is constitutional. The panel decided only that NetChoice had not shown a likelihood of success at the preliminary-injunction stage, and the litigation continues on remand. The opinion itself says nothing about when the appellate mandate issues or about any petition for rehearing, so the precise date the district court's order is formally dissolved is a docket question rather than something the opinion answers. The practical reading for a platform operator is that the injunction it was relying on is gone and the requirements should be treated as live compliance obligations, with the district-court docket checked for the next order.

Pornhub's August 2026 Letter: Advocacy, Not Litigation

In early August 2026, Pornhub sent a letter to more than 300 state officials nationwide, including Georgia's governor and attorney general, asking them to seek the rescission of age-verification laws generally. That is a lobbying request directed at elected officials, not a court filing, and it should not be described as litigation. As of this writing, no bill to repeal O.C.G.A. section 39-5-5 has been introduced or passed in the Georgia General Assembly.

What This Means If You Live in Georgia or Run a Website There

If you operate a commercial site where more than a third of the content is material harmful to minors and you have Georgia visitors, the age-verification requirement under O.C.G.A. section 39-5-5 has applied since July 2025 and has not been successfully challenged. Two Chapter 5 details matter for planning: there is no statutory grace period to fix a violation before an enforcement action, and a proceeding to impose the fine must be instituted within one year of the violation, so exposure for any single lapse is time limited but immediate. If you operate a social media platform, the position changed on October 15, 2026. The 11th Circuit vacated the injunction that had blocked the account-verification and parental-consent requirements under O.C.G.A. sections 39-6-1 through 39-6-5, and once the appellate mandate issues, no court order will stand between those requirements and enforcement. The case is back before the district court, and no court has ruled on the merits of the constitutional question, so the sound plan is to build toward compliance while watching the docket rather than to read the vacated injunction as continuing protection. For Georgia's broader personal-data rules, see Georgia data privacy laws.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Georgia's age-verification statutes. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The social-media provisions' litigation status can change quickly, and the case is now back before the district court; verify current status with the Georgia Attorney General's office, the court dockets, or a licensed Georgia attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

Related Articles

• Age Verification Laws by State
• Florida Age Verification Law
• Virginia Age Verification Law
• Georgia Data Privacy Laws

---

Last updated: 2026-10-18.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Georgia have an age-verification law for social media?

Yes. O.C.G.A. sections 39-6-1 through 39-6-5 require platforms to verify users' ages and obtain parental consent for account holders under 16. A federal judge preliminarily enjoined the statute on June 26, 2025, five days before its effective date, but the 11th Circuit vacated that injunction on October 15, 2026 and remanded the case, so the order that had been blocking it is gone. The appellate court did not decide whether the statute is constitutional.

Does Georgia require age verification for adult websites?

Yes. O.C.G.A. section 39-5-5 has required commercial sites where more than a third of the content is material harmful to minors to verify visitors are 18 or older since July 1, 2025. It has not been challenged in court.

Why do people say Georgia's age-verification law was struck down?

That description usually refers to the social-media provisions in O.C.G.A. sections 39-6-1 through 39-6-5, which a district court enjoined in 2025. The 11th Circuit vacated that injunction on October 15, 2026 and returned the case to the district court, so no court has struck the statute down. Neither description fits the separate adult-content requirement in section 39-5-5, which was never challenged and remains in effect.

Is Georgia's social-media age-verification law enforceable now that the 11th Circuit has ruled?

The 11th Circuit vacated the injunction that had blocked it on October 15, 2026; the district court's order is formally dissolved when the appellate mandate issues, so the current docket controls the exact date. That was a preliminary-injunction ruling, not a final judgment on the statute's constitutionality, and the case was remanded to the district court, so a platform operator should confirm the current docket position and the Georgia Attorney General's enforcement stance rather than treat either answer as permanent.

Is Pornhub blocked in Georgia?

Reporting indicates Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, chose to stop serving Georgia visitors on the adult-content law's July 1, 2025 effective date rather than build a compliant verification system. That was the platform's choice, not a state ban on adult content.

Has Georgia's adult-content age-verification law been challenged in court?

No lawsuit against O.C.G.A. section 39-5-5 has been found in this research, and NetChoice has publicly said it is not challenging that section.