Florida bill restricting access to ‘addictive’ social media for most minors heads to DeSantis

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida House passed a Senate-amended social media bill on Thursday that will ban minors under the age of 16 from accessing “addictive” social media platforms.

The bill is expected to be sent to the governor’s desk for approval, although he has expressed concerns with the lack of “parental rights” protections in the legislation.

HB 1 limits the age as to which a minor can create a social media account. Under the legislation, no individual under the age of 16 would be able to open an account.

The legislation passed 108-7 in the House, and 23-14 in the Senate earlier in the day.

The House bill was sponsored by Reps. Tyler Sirois, R-Merritt Island, Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, and Michele Rayner, D-St. Petersburg, in the House. Sen. Erin Grall, R-Fort Pierce, sponsored the Senate version.

During the Senate vote, Sens. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, and Rosalind Osgood, D-Tamarac supported the legislation, while Sens. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, and other Republicans opposed it.

The amended bill explains that “addictive” social media platforms must use a third party to establish an accurate age verification system for new users.

Addictive features, as defined by the bill, include infinite scrolling, push notification and auto-play.

The legislation does not apply to platforms that are primarily used for emailing, messaging, streaming, news, sports and entertainment.

Grall introduced a delete-all amendment to the bill while it was on the floor that further explained several aspects of the legislation, including how the social media platforms contract with third party age verifiers, delete data collection following the verification and terminate known accounts run by minors under 16.

The amendment also expanded the age verification requirements for website that could harm minors.

Sen. Tina Poslky, D-Boca Raton, introduced an amendment to the amendment, excluding minors under the age of 16 from the bill who can demonstrate that not having access to social media would negatively affect their professional development, financial wellbeing or employment.

Grall encouraged the Senate to vote down Polsky’s amendment because it is “contrary” to the “underlying goal” of the legislation.

The Democratic senator’s amendment to the amendment failed. However, Grall’s delete-all passed, ultimately changing the language of the bill from its original House form.

Sen. Lauren Book, D-Davie, expressed parental rights concerns with the legislation during the debate period.

“What we are talking about here is a very specific set of platforms and algorithms,” Grall responded. “In which there is no parent that can make the decision because there’s no way to know the scope of material that will be presented, unless you are with them 100% of the time.”

Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, raised concerns about online platforms still tracking minors even though they didn’t have accounts connected to their name and information.

Grall argued that the platforms and sites could simply not collect information on non-account holders in order to build better trust from the public.

She also reassured the senators that the age verification process respected privacy rights and the information would not be shared with the social media platforms themselves.

Sens. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach, and Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, said that although it was a “well intentioned” bill, they believed it was more important to favor parental rights and the freedom that guardians have to regulate their own child’s social media use.

Jones specifically pointed out the Parental Bill of Rights that the legislature had previously passed as a reminder that the bill was a violation of it.

Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Hollywood, emphasized the First Amendment rights of minors and the need to respect them. He didn’t approve of the current form of the bill, which he argued didn’t address real concerns with youth and adults.

“So let’s do this,” he said. “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 okay once in a while.”

“This will be overturned in the court of law, even at those in the state level appointed by the governor, and even at those at the federal level appointed by President Trump,” Pizzo said. “So I cannot, in intellectual honesty and good faith, vote for this bill.”

Sen. Doug Broxson, R-Pensacola, spoke in favor of the bill, highlighting the need to stand with educators and school faculty who he explained have struggled with controlling social media usage in classrooms.

“This is an effort to do something and send a message that we hear you,” he said. “This may not be a perfect bill, but it’s the beginning of a conversation where we say ‘we’re going to find a way to protect the most vulnerable people in our society.'”

Grall said in closing that the opponents of the bill were picking and choosing when it was “convenient” for them to stand up for parental rights in legislation.

“The parental rights argument may seem more compelling if my colleagues who have raised it supported parental rights in any of the prior iterations of that issue that have come before this body and the House,” she said.

DeSantis expressed concerns about parental rights and the exact age that students would be prevented from having an account, when asked about his position on the bill during a press conference.

“As you get into 14 and 15 I think it’s harmful for them to be on some of those platforms that have certain functionality that is addictive,” he said. “I agree with that. But I also believe that parents need to have a role in this.”