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Across the nation, state officials are busy at work, hammering out new legislation related to social media. In almost all cases, the new bills under consideration focus on protecting the youngest generation of teen and young adult social media users. It’s exactly these young people who are at greatest risk from the negative mental and emotional effects of social media use. So it makes sense that more needs to be done to protect them from the social media platforms, and any unscrupulous users of those platforms.
But are the new social media laws going to work as planned? After all, tech advocacy groups are already mounting legal defenses against them, in the hopes of watering down their provisions. And many of the terms are so loosely defined that they might be impractical to enforce in real life.
The new Florida social media law
Case in point: Florida is getting ready for the rollout of its new social media law in 2025. Ever since it was passed in April, though, it has come under attack and criticism from tech lobbyist groups. A popular approach for now is to attack the new law as “unconstitutional,” based on its possible ability to impact free speech. As these lobbyists see it, putting up all kinds of firewalls and guardrails around social media is tantamount to depriving young teens of their First Amendment rights.
As a result, Florida lawmakers have been forced to further define key provisions of the new law. One key concern, for example, is how the “age verification” mechanism is going to work. It’s not like young kids are carrying around official IDs with them. And verifying your age on the internet is a lot different than verifying your age in real life. If you’ve ever visited an internet site promoting alcohol (or other adult vices), you know what I mean. Usually, all you have to do is tick a box that says something like, “Yes, I’m over the age of 18. Let me in.”
Moreover, there’s open debate over what the term “reasonable parental verification” means. In theory, Florida parents can give the OK for their young kids to set up social media accounts. But how do parents prove that they have, indeed, authorized their kids to do this? Basically, it looks like kids can do this by simply reciting a list of data points about their parents, such as their date of birth. But just knowing a lot about your parents is not the same thing as them saying “yes” to your request!
And, finally, what level of conduct from social media platforms will result in penalties from the Florida Attorney General’s office? According to the legislation, it must be conduct that is both “knowing” and “reckless.” One example would be if a social media site knows that someone is underage, but still lets them use the site. That gets tricky really fast. If resourceful kids are using the internet equivalent of a fake ID, just about any social media platform can simply claim that they did everything possible to stop them, but somehow failed. Oops!
Can this Florida law be a template for other states?
The good news, if you want to call it that, is that the new Florida legislation can act as a workable template for other states that are attempting to safeguard their young social media users. So, if Florida can nail the right legal language, and provide the right type of guidance to state officials looking to enforce the law, it will make it much easier for other states to “copy-and-paste” language from that legislation. In a best-case scenario, legislation that starts in one state can spread like wildfire to all 50.
With that in mind, keep your eyes on January 2025. That’s when the new Florida bill is supposed to go into effect, provided there are no legal hiccups along the way. If the bill has not been watered down or neutered by then, we might just see a huge step forward to protecting our kids on social media.
