TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Lawmakers in the Florida Senate have passed a bill that would keep teenagers under the age of 16 from using social media.
HB 1 would restrict teenagers under the age of 16 from creating social media accounts and provide options for termination of their existing accounts.
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The bill was passed with a mixed vote of 23-14 vote on Thursday.
HB 1 now heads to the House chamber for a final vote.
If it passes there, it will head to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in the past has questioned if it will pass legal muster.
DeSantis was asked about the bill during an appearance in Lake Buena Vista on Thursday.
“It’s still under negotiation,” DeSantis said. “We’re working through those. I don’t think it’s there yet.”
Supporters in Florida hope that if the bill becomes law, it would withstand legal challenges because it would ban social media formats based on addictive features such as notification alerts and autoplay videos, rather than the content on their sites.
But opponents say it blatantly violates the First Amendment and that it should left to parents, not the government, to monitor children’s social media use.
“This isn’t 1850. While parents show up at school board meetings to ban books, their kids are on their iPads looking at really bad stuff,” said Democratic state Sen. Jason Pizzo.
He sarcastically said lawmakers have other options if they want to parent other people’s children.
“Let’s have a bill that encourages engaging with your children, cooking dinner, sitting at a table together, making eye contact, calling grandma to see if she’s OK once in a while.” Pizzo added.
DeSantis said he understood that the platforms could be harmful to teenagers, but that parents need to play a role in monitoring use.
“We can’t say that 100% of the uses are bad because they’re not,” he commented at an Orlando-area news conference. “I don’t think it’s there yet, but I hope we can get there in a way that answers parents’ concerns.”
The Florida bill would require social media companies to close any accounts it believes to be used by minors and to cancel accounts at the request of a minor or parents. Any information pertaining to the account must be deleted.
Carl Szabo, NetChoice Vice President & General Counsel released the following statement regarding HB 1, which you can read here:
“We appreciate the changes to HB 1, but while the bill is less unconstitutional, it is still unconstitutional.”
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