TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida lawmakers gave final passage to a ban on most social media accounts for children under 16, sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not given his support to it yet.
The Senate passed a revised HB 1 by a 23-14 vote on Thursday morning, and the House passed that version Thursday afternoon, despite concerns the bill ran counter to the state’s recent push for parental rights.
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“There is no ability for informed parental consent because the behemoth that is big tech — and five companies alone, they made over $222 billion in 2022 in revenues. I am challenged to find a parent that can keep up with what the power of that dollar is doing to take their child from them,” said State Sen. Erin Grall, R-Fort Pierce, who is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.
“But we know that’s what’s happening on those platforms. So you or I... or any one of us who has children that are under the age of 16 can say ‘You’re not doing it,’” said State Sen. Lauren Book, D-Davie. “Why is it the legislature or the government’s place to be doing that for our children?”
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The bill requires social media companies to terminate any existing accounts by minors, and also bar those under 16 from creating new accounts. It allows the state to bring complaints against the social media platforms they feel are violating the law, and the companies could face fines for each violation.
The bill does not name specific platforms, but it defines them as:
- Use of addictive, harmful, or deceptive design features, or any other feature that is designed to cause an account holder to have an excessive or compulsive need to use or engage with the social media platform (such as autoplay or infinite scrolling)
- Tracks the activity of an account holder, collects data, does targeted ad use, etc.
Efforts to add amendments to the bill that would give parents the right to allow their children on social media, or allow young people who have businesses or nonprofits on social media, were beaten back.
Social media companies are required to use independent third-party age verification systems to verify the prospective account holder is of age. The Senate added a provision from another bill, HB 3, that would also require independent age verification for sites that are deemed to post content harmful to children.
The Senate also made changes that would require age verification before an account is created. The change would affect adult users as well.
That change means the bill, which was previously approved by the Florida House will have to go back to the House for new approval.
The bill is the latest effort by government entities to go after social media companies in the wake of evidence that the companies’ practices are proving to be harmful to the mental health of children.
The U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory last year that laid the growing mental health crisis among young people partially at the feet of social media platforms that critics said are purposely trying to hook people to become lifelong users. The surgeon general’s advisory called on policymakers to limit access to make social media safer for children and better protect children’s privacy.
However, opponents of the bill said there are benefits of social media too, and in the end, there need to be exceptions made for parents who judge their children as mature enough to handle social media.
Utah, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Ohio have similar laws, all of which are currently on hold as lawsuits work their way through federal courts.
Whether Gov. Ron DeSantis will sign the bill is the question. He has voiced concerns that the bill might go too far in violating constitutional rights.
On Thursday, DeSantis said he understood the bill was a priority for House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Flagler County, but he believed that parents should have a right to allow older children on social media if they want to.
“As much as I think it’s harmful to have people on social media platforms for five or six hours a day,” DeSantis said. “A parent can supervise a kid to use it more sparingly. And so we can’t say 100% of the uses are bad because it’s not and I’m a critic of social media, but I have to look at this from a parent’s perspective.”
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