How Florida Will Enforce Social Media Law to Limit Kids’ Use – NBC 6 South Florida

As Florida faces potential First Amendment challenges, the state has outlined details on how it will implement a new law aimed at banning children from social media platforms and preventing minors from accessing online pornography.

Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office released three proposed rules Tuesday that address, among other things, one of the most closely watched issues in the law: age verification.

House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, made it a priority to pass the bill (HB 3) during this year’s legislative session, citing what he called the harm social media is doing to children. Tech industry groups have argued that parts of the bill, including the age-verification requirements, violate First Amendment rights.

The law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, aims to prevent children under 16 from opening social media accounts on at least some platforms, though it would give parents permission for 14- and 15-year-olds to have accounts. Children under 14 would not be allowed to open accounts. It would also require age verification in an effort to prevent minors under 18 from accessing online pornography sites.

The social media restrictions have drawn the most attention, and the law places much of the responsibility for verifying users’ ages on platforms. It says that violations of a “willful or reckless” nature could result in the attorney general’s office filing lawsuits against platforms for unfair and deceptive business practices. Platforms could also face lawsuits filed on behalf of minors.

One of the proposed rules published Tuesday states that intentional “disregard of a person’s age constitutes a willful or reckless violation” of social media restrictions.

“A social media platform knowingly disregards an individual’s age if, based on the facts or circumstances readily available to the respondent (the platform), it reasonably should have doubted that the individual was a child and thereafter failed to conduct reasonable age verification,” the proposed rule states.

The bill states that the attorney general’s office “shall not find intentional disregard for a person’s age if a social media platform demonstrates that it used a reasonable age verification method with respect to anyone accessing the social media platform and that reasonable age verification method determined that the person was not a child, unless the social media platform later obtained factual knowledge that the person was a child and did not act.”

The proposed rules also cover what is described as “reasonable parental verification,” which could be important, for example, if parents want to consent to 14- and 15-year-old children’s access to social media platforms.

One of the rules defines reasonable parental verification as “any method that is reasonably calculated to establish that a person is the parent of a child and that also verifies the age and identity of that parent by commercially reasonable means.”

That could include methods such as platforms requesting children’s names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of parents; contacting the people whose names were provided by the children to obtain information and confirmation; and “using any commercially reasonable method regularly used by government or business to verify” the identity and age of parents.

The law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in late March, does not identify which social media platforms would be affected by the restrictions. But it does include a definition of such platforms, with criteria related to things like algorithms, “addictive features” and allowing users to view the content or activities of other users.

Renner and other leading proponents of the law argue that social media companies have created addictive platforms that harm children’s mental health and could lead to sexual predators communicating with minors. But critics, including tech industry groups, have argued that the law is unconstitutional and pointed out that courts have blocked similar legislation in other states.

Before DeSantis signed the bill, the technology group NetChoice sent him a letter arguing that the measure was unconstitutional on a number of grounds, including the age-verification requirements.

“Internet age verification systems are plainly unconstitutional,” Carl Szabo, the organization’s vice president and general counsel, wrote in the March 7 letter. “Because the Internet is home to significant amounts of First Amendment speech, users should not be forced to give up their anonymity to access it.”

When DeSantis signed the law in March, Renner said he expected NetChoice to sue. But Renner, an attorney, expressed confidence the state would prevail in court, citing the dangers of social media for children.

“This is an issue where we can no longer sit on the sidelines because of what we know,” he said.

The publication of the proposed rules in the Florida Administrative Register on Tuesday could lead to a hearing before the rules become final. Rules are often used in state government to hammer out details after laws are passed.