Florida passes sweeping bill to keep young people off social media

The Florida Legislature has passed a sweeping social media law that will make the state the first to effectively ban youth under the age of 16 from maintaining accounts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

The measure — which Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would “wrestle” over the weekend and has not yet signed — could potentially change the lives of millions of young people in Florida.

The country would also likely face constitutional challenges. Federal courts have blocked less restrictive youth social media laws passed by Arkansas and Ohio last year. Judges in those cases said the new statutes most likely infringed on social media companies’ freedom of expression to disseminate information, as well as the rights of young people to access it.

The new rules in Florida, adopted Thursday, require social networks to both prevent people under 16 from signing up for accounts and terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users. It would apply to apps and sites with certain features, most likely including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

Last year, Utah, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio passed laws requiring social media platforms to obtain parental consent before giving an account to a minor under 18 or under 16.

Florida’s efforts would go much further and amount to a blanket ban for young people on some of the most popular social media apps. It would also prevent the platforms from showing harmful material to minors, including “blatantly offensive” sexual conduct.

On Friday, Mr. DeSantis said that he thought social media had “a net negative effect” on young people, but that, with parental control, it could have beneficial effects.

“When you look at these things, you have to find the right balance between policies that help parents get where they want to go versus policies that straight up push parents aside,” he said.

Civil liberties groups and tech industry trade bodies have objected to new state restrictions on social media, saying the measures could severely limit young people’s access to important information and communities – and the way they connect with friends and family communication can change.

The Florida measure is the most extreme example yet of a growing national trend. Many parents, pediatricians and politicians are concerned about the potential risks to young people’s mental health and safety from long-term social media use. That has prompted state and federal lawmakers and regulators to increase their oversight and efforts to regulate social media companies.

In a politically polarized climate, the crackdown on social media is notable because it is bipartisan.

Attorneys general from more than forty states recently sued Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook. They accused the company of unfairly entrapping children and teenagers and misleading the public about safety. (Meta has said it has spent a decade working to make online experiences safe and age-appropriate for teens, and that the state’s lawsuits “mischaracterize our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”)

In addition, Democratic- and Republican-led states have recently passed a wave of laws requiring social media companies to limit risks to young people and give parents more control over their children’s online activities.

Apps like Snapchat and Instagram already have policies that ban users under the age of 13. That’s because the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires certain online services to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information, such as full names, contact information, locations or selfie photos. – from children under the age of 13.

But state regulators say millions of minors have been able to sign up for social media accounts simply by providing false birth dates. Supporters of the Florida law say it would solve this problem by requiring social media companies to verify the ages of all users before granting them accounts. Under the measure, companies would have to deny accounts to people who could not verify their age.

Conservative policy experts have praised the Florida measure, saying it would ease the peer pressure many parents feel to give their children social media accounts — and reduce parents’ fears of social isolation for children who aren’t on social media.

“Florida’s social media law marks a milestone in protecting children from the harms of social media,” he said Clare Morell, a senior policy analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative group in Washington, who has worked with lawmakers in several states on bills on parental rights. “It provides a necessary collective solution by making social media a non-option for children under 16.”

Civil liberties groups have warned that such social media restrictions could deter teenagers from everyday activities, such as watching news videos on apps like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. And, they say, it could deter young people from seeking information and communities on issues such as political organizing, reproductive health and gender identity.