A measure prohibiting kids aged 14 or younger from owning some social media accounts is now law in Florida and will go into effect on July 1. Youngsters ages 14 and 15 may open accounts if they have permission from their parents.
Signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis during a March 25 event in Jacksonville, HB 3 also requires that platforms that post pornographic or sexually explicit content use age verification to prevent minors from viewing them.
Just before signing the bill into law, DeSantis said that the measure prevents young people from being manipulated by some social media sites.
“You can have a kid in the house safe seemingly and then you have predators that get right in there into your home,” DeSantis said. “You could be doing everything right but they know how to get and manipulate these different platforms and it has created huge problems.”
HB 3 is the latest version of HB 1, the youth media bill that was passed by the legislature in February. On March 1, DeSantis declined to sign the earlier version of the measure on grounds that the initial bill was inadequate.
Critics of the measure say that the law will not pass constitutional muster.
Meanwhile, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody vowed to defend attempts to challenge it.
“Florida has to lead on this because it is coming from no place else,” Moody said before the bill was signed. “And you better believe that I will fight like hell to uphold this in court.”
