Recently, the Florida government has been debating on legislation introduced on October, 13th 2021, by State Senator Danny Burgess called SB 480, also known as the Social Media Literacy bill.

The bill would require schools to teach students and teachers the benefits and dangers of social media as it becomes more popular. An idea called Social Media Literacy Lessons will focus on adapting to the 21st century. In an interview with the Associated Press, State Senator Danny Burgess explained the bill’s reasoning stating,”Kids are losing their innocence more and more every day earlier because of the things you can just see by pulling it up online, even if they’re not looking for it.” Currently, the legislation has limited details on what will be included in the Social Media Literacy Lessons.

While this bill aims to protect children, it has received criticism from numerous social media companies. Their reason being is the bill’s effect on the free usage of the internet. In an interview about the legislation with Tampa Bay 8 News, Brian Johnson, who worked for social media companies such as Facebook, Optimize, and Heroic, stated, “It’s not the technology that’s the issue per say, it’s when you take the technology which can be used unequivocally to do great good, but you’re running it through at attention economics model without the moral compass to make the right decisions.” The attention economics that Johnson is talking about is referring to how people react to being given information as a resource.

This legislation has received support from both Republicans and Democrats. (This support might be because of the focus on protecting students from potential online dangers.) If it were to pass, it would go into effect by July 1st of next year, ready for the 2022-2023 school year. Even though the bill has not reached a Senate vote, it still has to go through many committees before the final vote in the State Senate.