BATON ROUGE - A law passed by the Louisiana legislature to protect children from certain online content was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court judge on Tuesday.

Critics in court said the law was overly vague and too broad, and Judge John deGravelles agreed.

Louella Burrell has a large family, including kids and grandkids, and she expresses concern that social media can put her grandkids in an unsafe position, depending on what they have access to.

Two years ago, Louisiana lawmakers addressed those concerns and passed the "The Secure Online Child Interaction Age Limitation Act," a law that mandates social media sites verify whether someone using their platform is 16 years old or older.

"To me, it's just not enough; you have to monitor your children," Burrell said.

Attorney Franz Borghardt agrees that parents should be monitoring their children's online free speech use, but he says this current law goes too far and is too broad to survive legal free speech analysis.

"The issue is, it's not that easy," Borghardt said.

The trade group NetChoice agrees and challenged the law in court on those grounds.

"Even if age is something we need to safeguard, that in and of itself isn't enough to trump free speech," Borghardt said.

Judge John deGravelles agreed with that argument and, in his decision, sided with NetChoice. In his ruling, the judge said the state of Louisiana couldn't use "free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

"We would hope that first and foremost it's up to the parents," Borghardt said. "They are the first line of defense."

This isn't the first time the state has tried restricting private, online companies or how minors access them. Act 236 from this year's legislative session requires companies to notify guardians in instances where a child connects with someone online, sends explicit content, or spends money in a game.

Louella Burrell says she'd rather keep an eye on her family herself.