{"id":61555,"date":"2025-11-26T14:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T14:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/61555\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T14:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T14:45:08","slug":"court-oks-florida-to-enforce-social-media-law-restricting-childrens-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/61555\/","title":{"rendered":"Court OKs Florida to enforce social media law restricting children\u2019s access"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE \u2014 A divided federal appeals court Tuesday ruled that Florida can begin enforcing a 2024 law aimed at preventing children from having access to certain social media platforms, rejecting arguments that the measure violates First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, granted the state\u2019s request for a stay of a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Mark Walkerissued in June<\/a> to block the law (HB 3<\/a>). Tuesday\u2019s decision means the state can enforce the law while a legal battle continues to play out \u2014 with Attorney General James Uthmeier quickly posting on X that \u201cHB 3 is now the law of the state and will be enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law prevents children under age 14<\/a> from opening accounts on certain platforms \u2014 which court documents indicate could include platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and YouTube. Parents would have to give consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to have accounts on the platforms.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the law, one of the biggest issues of the 2024 legislative session, contend that the targeted platforms have addictive features that harm children\u2019s mental health<\/a>. The majority of the appeals court panel rejected Walker\u2019s conclusion that the law likely violated the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than blocking children from accessing social media altogether, HB 3 simply prevents them from creating accounts on platforms that employ addictive features,\u201d Judge Elizabeth Branch wrote in the 26-page majority opinion joined by Judge Barbara Lagoa. \u201cAnd even among such platforms, the law narrows its focus to those that have evidenced significant usage by children and young teens. The district court erred in holding otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Judge Robin Rosenbaum, in a 29-page dissent, called the law \u201cplainly unconstitutional on its face\u201d and said it also will affect adults, who will be subject to age verification to have accounts on the targeted platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it\u2019s written, the act purports to regulate the speech of everyone who uses the covered social media websites,\u201d Rosenbaum wrote. \u201cFor minors, it acts as a categorical ban on speech (and access to speech) on covered social media platforms. And it forces the platform to demand identifying information from all users, including adults. In doing so, it chills countless users\u2019 speech on deeply personal, political, religious and familial matters \u2014 reaching the heart of what the First Amendment was designed to protect in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association filed the lawsuit<\/a> last year in federal court in Tallahassee. The group\u2019s members include companies such as Google, Meta Platforms and Snap Inc., the operator of Snapchat.<\/p>\n

The state went to the Atlanta-based appeals court after Walker issued the preliminary injunction. While Tuesday\u2019s ruling allows the law to be at least temporarily enforced, it did not resolve the underlying battle about the injunction.<\/p>\n

\u201cBriefing (on the preliminary injunction) has finished, and we look forward to the opportunity to explain the law\u2019s constitutional problems to the court directly,\u201d Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said in a prepared statement Tuesday. \u201cWe will consider all available options to ensure Floridians\u2019 online communication is safe and free. Florida\u2019s censorship regime not only violates its citizens\u2019 free speech rights but also makes all users \u2014 especially minors \u2014 less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law did not name platforms that would be affected. But it includes criteria such as whether platforms\u2019 features include infinite scroll and autoplay.<\/p>\n

The appeals court\u2019s majority opinion said the law was \u201ccontent neutral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd plaintiffs do not point to any language in the statute or other evidence that the Florida Legislature\u2019s justification for passing the law was related to the suppression of speech or disagreement with certain topics or viewpoints,\u201d Branch wrote. \u201cInstead, they argue that \u2018HB 3 targets websites based on the social subject matter of the material they disseminate.\u2019 But HB 3 defines social media platforms by reference to a form of expression, not a subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Rosenbaum wrote that the law is \u201ccontent based,\u201d saying, for example, it doesn\u2019t apply to streaming services that include many of the same features as the targeted platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, platforms like YouTube and Snapchat are covered, but websites like Hulu and Disney+ are not,\u201d Rosenbaum wrote. \u201cAnd the act determines whether a platform is covered based on what content that platform permits. Generally speaking, if a platform involves public user-to-user speech, then the platform is covered; if it doesn\u2019t, it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida<\/p>\n

News Service senior writer Dara Kam contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE \u2014 A divided federal appeals court Tuesday ruled that Florida can begin enforcing a 2024 law aimed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[33806,7071,37133,37131,32791,28,30,9129,29,4215,37134,37135,7381,37132,6097],"class_list":["post-61555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-appeals-court","tag-children","tag-elizabeth-branch","tag-federal-appeals-court","tag-federal-court","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-house","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-senate","tag-hb","tag-mark-walker","tag-paul-renner","tag-preliminary-injunction","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}