FL Legislature scraps plans for flat ban on social media access by users under 16
In this photo illustration, social media apps are seen on a mobile phone. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
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Legislation that cleared the Florida Legislature Thursday scraps plans for a flat ban on social media access by users under 16 years old. But platforms could sign them up only by dropping key elements of their business plans, which emphasize “engagement” tactics designed to keep the youngsters scrolling.
Those tactics, a revised version of the session’s social media bills specifies, include algorithms to select content, push notifications, or emphasizing interactive metrics such as counts of a post’s “likes.”
The changes, first adopted as an amendment in the Senate earlier in the week, are “really to focus on the addictive features that are keeping the kids on the platform” and thereby ease censorship concerns, sponsor Erin Grall told reporters following the vote in her chamber.
The full Senate voted 23-14 for the new language. The House followed suit later in the day on a vote of 108-7. Some news sources cited House Speaker Paul Renner as planning to send the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis right away, giving him enough time to sign or veto it before the regular session adjourns on March 8, in light of the governor’s known qualms about the bill.
House sponsor Tyler Sirois, a Republican from Brevard County, said the new language was intended to appease the governor’s concerns. As he presented the bill to the chamber, Sen. Grall sat at his side. Michelle Rayner, a Democrat representing parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, is a House co-sponsor,
The measure expressly does not identify any platforms by name. The amendment also folded in separate legislation intended to limit access to online porn by people under age 18.
“We don’t know what the technology is going to look like in the future — it could change. This isn’t about any one platform; it’s really about features, not content, keeping it content-neutral,” Grall said.
The changes offer a path to offer social media for teens that don’t feature what Grall views as predatory practices.
“It really, I think, provides a very good outline for businesses that want children under the age of 16 to interact with their product — it says just don’t do these things and they’ll be able to access the product,” she said.
Constitutional?
Critics weren’t mollified.
“This will be overturned in a court of law even by those at the state level appointed by the governor and those at the federal level appointed by President Trump. So, I cannot in intellectual honesty and good faith support this bill,” said Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo, who represents parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
Grall, representing five counties centered on Fort Pierce, insisted that social media sites are exploiting children and fostering bullying and suicide, using techniques to keep them logged in and exposing them to harmful material.
“Their ability to spread a message in a viral way should also be seen as a national security threat to what the future of what this country looks like, when we know that children are being influenced so significantly by these addictive features,” Grall said.
Furthermore, “we know that there are pedophiles and sexual predators on these platforms and children can be groomed in less than 45 minutes,” she added. “This is not something that’s talked about in theory, this is for real.”
A version of the legislation (HB 1) had already passed the Florida House, although as measures addressing social media and access to porn separately. That chamber OK’d the Senate’s changes with little debate.
Burt Sirois delivered a stemwinder of a closing statement.
“These companies would have the courts believe that they are bastions of free speech, but how is it free speech if an algorithm decides what you see, when you see it, and how often your child sees it?” he said.
“How is it freedom of speech if participation is achieved through manipulation and deception? How is it free speech if participation is maintained through addiction? How is it freedom of speech if a child is expected to consent to the terms of service in a 14-page, 5,000-word contract written by the best attorneys that money can buy? That doesn’t sound like free speech to me. That sounds like something else entirely.”
DeSantis’ take
DeSantis had expressed skepticism about the legislation, which he repeated during a news conference Thursday.
“You can say that it’s disfavored or not allowed for [ages] 14, 15, but a parent has a right to opt in because, as much as I think it’s harmful to have people on these social media platforms for five or six hours a day, 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,” the governor said.
“I’m a critic of social media, but I have to look at this from a parent’s perspective. So, we’re working through those. I don’t think it’s there yet. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get there in a way that I think answers the concerns that a lot of folks have because I do think parents are concerned about social media.”
Other critics argued the bill runs counter to Republicans’ expressed support for parental rights, but Grall said she’d be more impressed by that argument if the Democrats advancing it had supported it in any other context.
Sirois was scathing about that argument.
“If you accept that these platforms are harmful, there can be no parental consent,” he said.
“These design features are rewiring how our children think. How they learn, how they behave, how they respond to peer pressures, how they form relationships, the concept of right and wrong. These companies are doing that. And if that’s not indoctrination, I don’t know what is.”
And the bill did draw support from Democrats, including Sen. Rosalind Osgood of Broward County.
Rosalind Osgood via Florida Senate
“No one wants government overreach,” Osgood said.
But “drastic times all for drastic measures. And the harm is there. There evidence of the harm is there,” she continued. “This is a good attempt, and I don’t know whether the court will uphold it or not. To do nothing is not reasonable. I’m voting for this bill today because it’s a step in the right direction.”
Democratic Senate leader Lauren Book, also of Broward, said it would be better to invest in psychiatric support for teenagers than ban social media.
“That’s not going to solve the problem. It’s not, because you can’t simply turn a blind eye to the world and reality,” Book said.
Revised language
The revised bill singles out practices that attempt to keep users hooked, including through continuous scrolling of content without the need to push a button for more; sending text notifications to lure them online; and posting of user metrics of “likes” and views of their posts.
A platform that doesn’t do any of those things would be free to sign up minors, according to Grall.
The bill would affect platforms for which kids under 16 make up at least 10% of daily active users and spend at least two hours on the site. These platforms would have to “prohibit a minor who is younger than 16 years of age from entering into a contract with a social media platform to become an account holder.” They’d have to verify ages using “either an anonymous age verification method or a standard method” and if that’s not possible reject new or cancel existing accounts.
Violations would be considered an unfair trade practice punishable by a civil penalty of up to $50,000 per violation plus punitive damages in case of reckless failure to comply. Age-verification providers would be subject to the same penalties if they knowingly or recklessly fail to take due care. Knowing or reckless failure to remove underage users would subject platforms to civil liability of up to $10,000.
Porn language
The pornography language targets “material harmful to minors” defined as stuff “the average person applying contemporary community standards would find, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest” that “depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct”; and that “when taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”
These sites would have to use the same verification methods as the social media platforms to ensure that kids under 18 can’t have access. Penalties for violations mirror those for social media platforms. The language specifies that violations won’t attach to internet service providers that host the websites. Verifiers would have to permanently delete any information they gather during the process.
“This section does not apply to any bona fide news or public interest broadcast, website video, report, or event and does not affect the rights of a news-gathering organization,” the bill says.
The third-party verifiers might not be an ideal solution, however — according to a Forbes analysis published last August, those that use government ID or biometric data are vulnerable to hacking and presumably blackmail. Bill sponsor Grall argued some systems verify users through other means, including biometric data, but the Forbes piece suggests users can evade these checks merely by use of VPN services that can indicate they’re seeking access from a jurisdiction where the requirement doesn’t apply.
This story has been updated to reflect the House vote. —Phoenix reporter Jackie Llanos contributed to this report.
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