In the US, Florida became the first state to effectively prevent residents under the age of 14 from having accounts for services such as TikTok and the Instagramenacting a strict social media law that will likely affect the lives of many young people.
The historic law, signed by the governor Ron DeSantis This Monday, the 25th, is one of the most restrictive measures a state has enacted so far in a growing nationwide effort to protect young people from potential mental health and safety risks on social media platforms. The statute prohibits certain platforms from providing accounts to minors under the age of 14 and requires the services to terminate accounts that the companies know or believe belong to underage users.
The new rules also require platforms to obtain parental permission before granting accounts to users aged 14 and 15.
At a news conference Monday, DeSantis praised the measure, saying it will help parents navigate “difficult terrain” online. He added that “being buried” in devices all day is not the best way to grow.
“Social media harms children in many ways,” DeSantis said in a statement. The new bill “gives parents greater ability to protect their children.”
DeSantis vetoed a previous bill that would have banned social media accounts for 14- and 15-year-olds, even with parental consent. The governor said the previous bill would interfere with parents’ rights to make decisions about their children’s online activities.
Florida’s new measure will almost certainly face constitutional challenges over the rights of young people to freely seek information and the rights of companies to distribute information.
Federal judges in several other states have recently suspended less restrictive online safety laws on free speech grounds in response to lawsuits filed by NetChoice, a technology industry trade group that represents companies including Goal, Snap and TikTok.
Judges in Ohio and Arkansas, for example, have blocked laws in those states that would require certain social networks to verify users’ ages and obtain parental permission before granting accounts to those under 16 or 18. A federal judge in California has suspended a state law that would have required certain social networking and video game apps to turn on higher privacy settings by default for minors and turn off certain features, such as autoplaying videos, by default for those users.
In addition to age restrictions on social media, Florida’s new law requires online pornography services to use age verification systems to keep minors off their platforms.
Applications such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram already have policies that prohibit children under 13 years of age from the platforms. This is because the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires certain online services to obtain parental permission before collecting personal information — such as full names, contact information, locations or selfie photos — from children under 13.
But state regulators say millions of underage children were able to sign up for social media accounts simply by providing false birth dates.
This content was translated with the help of Artificial Intelligence tools and reviewed by our editorial team. Find out more in our AI Policy.
