No social media for kids? Florida moves even closer to banning minors from platforms

A bill banning minors in Florida younger than 16 from social media is now headed to the Senate floor.

The Senate Fiscal Policy Committee approved the legislation (HB 1) with some alterations on Thursday afternoon, with all Republicans and one Democrat in support. The measure comes amid mounting concerns of children's social media addiction and exploitation.

In addition to the ban, the legislation requires age verification for all new accounts, with existing accounts required to be removed when a social media platform "knows or has reason to believe" it's held by someone younger than 16.

A couple of the GOP members of the panel mentioned they felt conflicted about the proposal, specifically about how it doesn't include parental permission exceptions.

"Where I think there's a lot of very good things in this bill, things that everybody could agree on, I struggle with the fact that it creates inconsistences with what this Legislature has focused on these last couple of years," said Republican Sen. Jay Trumbull of Panama City Beach, referring to GOP lawmakers' emphasis on parental rights. "My concern is that the bill replaces the parent in that decision, replaces it with a far-reaching government edict."

That's also one of the big concerns of opposing Democrats: "It's not the Legislature's job to parent the parents in how they parent," said Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens.

Sen. Erin Grall, R-Fort Pierce, said the state has already made a number of decisions about "harmful behavior and children."

"We don't allow parents to harm their children. We don't allow them to addict their children," Grall said. "We step in as the state of Florida, we say that's not acceptable."

The bill is scheduled for consideration on the Senate floor next week.

A big question mark is whether Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has veto power, supports it. The governor has voiced legal concerns with the measure, as recently as Tuesday saying he wouldn't support it if he didn't think it was going to pass "legal muster."

Jeremy Redfern, DeSantis' press secretary, said in a Thursday afternoon email that he had no comment on whether the governor can support the measure in its current form. DeSantis "will review legislation once it is approved by the legislature and delivered to our office in its final form," Redfern wrote.

Legal concerns also were mentioned by many Democrats and First Amendment advocates at the meeting.

"The Internet, including social media platforms, contains vast amounts of constitutionally-protected speech for both adults and minors," said Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. "The age verification requirements in HB 1 place barriers between users – whether they're adults or minors – and their constitutional right to speak online."

Gross added the age verification requirements "blatantly chill the speech and threaten the privacy of adults by requiring them to surrender their anonymity."

Grall said she believed the bill was legally valid. It doesn't go after content, she said: "It is about the features. It is about the way in which those features are deployed to monetize our children and make them addicts."

Bucking against the "anonymity" criticism, she also said the bill requires the use of third-party age verification services that must not retain any personal identifying information.

During a Thursday evening press conference, House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said he thought Grall's arguments "addressed all the objections that have been raised about the bill from any quarter."

Renner said he still thought the legislation, one of his priority bills of this session, is legally sound.

"We're not saying kids can't be on social media platforms," he said. "We're saying that social media platforms can simply adjust their behavior slightly to make it less addictive."

Regardless, the bill still has to pass the Senate and then the House again. The House approved the bill last month but the bill has been modified since by the Senate, and both chambers must OK identical language.

Bill now includes porn viewership provision

Moreover, the bill has gobbled language from another measure (HB 3) to require age verification to access pornographic websites.

The porn legislation had passed the House unanimously, and the conversation on Thursday was mainly focused on the social media provisions.

But Greg Gonzalez, legislative counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told committee lawmakers that requiring age verification to access "constitutionally-protected materials ... imposes significant burdens on the exercise of First Amendment rights."

The legislation had several other changes, such as adding more details to its definition of affected social media platforms. One of them: "Has 10 percent or more of daily active users younger than 16 years of age spending, on average, 2 hours per day on the online forum, website, or application."

There's a chance there'll be more modification. Trumbull voted for the bill Thursday despite his reservations, but told Grall he knows she "will continue to work on this bill as it moves forward."

And while some Republicans and Democrats shared concerns, some also shared support.

Sen. Rosalind Osgood, D-Tamarac, the only Democrat who voted "yes" on the bill, mentioned that there's children with busy or absent parents who aren't monitoring their social media use, meaning they get unfettered access to potentially harmful material and people.

"If this doesn't work, we can come back and change the law," Osgood said. "I feel very strongly this is a step in the right direction."

This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida bill booting minors off social media moves closer to passage