Bipartisan Coalition of States, D.C., Defend Florida's Kids Social Media Ban
A Florida social media law that would prohibit children 13 and younger from creating social media accounts is content-neutral and furthers governmental interests in protecting them from online harms, said a bipartisan coalition of 27 states and Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
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The coalition, led by Utah, authored a legal brief asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse an early-June decision blocking HB-3. In that ruling, Judge Mark Walker of the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida said the law implicates the First Amendment (see 2506030057).
In addition, the law would require parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds before they could create social posts. It employs age-verification to implement these restrictions (see 2506030057), which the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and NetChoice said pose privacy risks in the original lawsuit in October 2024.
“The Act applies to platforms that allow users to upload content or view other users’ content,” which is “quintessentially content agnostic,” the states said. “HB3 doesn’t target speech based on the topics discussed or ideas or messages conveyed ... and there’s no argument or factual grounds suggesting Florida adopted the law because of disagreement with any message conveyed.”
Where the district court erred, they added, was in finding that HB-3 fails to meet intermediate scrutiny. If a law “advances important governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and does not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests,” it has met the necessary level of scrutiny, and HB-3 does, the group said.
Additionally, it said the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton proved that parental controls and public education are not always enough to protect kids online (see 2506270041), which is why laws like HB-3 are needed.
In addition to D.C. and Utah, the other states that signed on to the letter are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
“Parents are fighting a battle they cannot win alone,” said South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) in a press release Thursday. “States must step in to protect the next generation.”