The Florida House voted 106-13 in favor of House Bill 1 which takes measures to ban minors under the age of 16 from using social media. HB 1 passed the House on January 24 and has now moved on to the Florida Senate.
Should the bill pass the Senate social media platforms will be required to terminate accounts owned by minors, restrict them from creating new accounts, and disclose these new policies. The platforms must also implement new methods to accurately verify the age of an account holder. Failing to fulfill these requirements could result in social media companies being fined up to $10,000 per account owned by a minor.
House Bill 1 was constructed with the intent to protect minors from potential harms that social media can expose them to. Lawmakers have listed such harms to be mental health issues and becoming a target of cyber bullies or online predators.
It is a priority for House Speaker Paul Renner to see the bill passed, “This is about protecting children from addictive technology and what we know harms them,” Renner told House members after the vote. This is the same reasoning heard from Republican Fiona McFarland, saying this legislation will shield kids from what she called “digital fentanyl.”
Rep. Daryl Campbell, one of the thirteen Democrats against HB 1, called the bill a “complete governmental overreach.” Many opponents have made a similar argument about the bill infringing on the First Amendment right of minors (or anyone who refuses to comply with age-verification requirements) by prohibiting them from accessing constitutionally protected speech. They also express that it takes away the rights of parents to choose how they raise their children when it comes to social media.
“We don’t give you a parental right for your kid to buy alcohol or tobacco under the legal age, or to drive a car,” McFarland said in an interview with USA TODAY. “We are putting social media, as a product, on the same level as all of these other harms that are inappropriate for children.”
Other legislation has been passed with the same goal of protecting minors: book bans, the “Don’t Say Gay” law, House Bill 379 (making phone use illegal during school hours), barring an advanced-level high school course that teaches African American history and AP Psychology for violating state legislation.
Now, it is up to the Florida Senate to decide the fate of House Bill 1.
