Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a sweeping social media ban for Florida children that’s almost certain to be challenged in court by technology companies and First Amendment advocates as unconstitutional.
The law bans kids under age 14 from having social media accounts but parents can allow 14- and 15-year-olds to log on. Anyone 16 or older can have an account.
“One thing that strikes me as someone with a background as a prosecutor, you look at young kids, you know there’s dangers, predators out there,” DeSantis said at a signing ceremony in Jacksonville. “Now with social media, you can have a kid in the house safe, seemingly, and you can have predators that can get in there right into your own home and manipulate them.”
DeSantis and House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said they believe the law will withstand legal challenges because the bipartisan-supported measure is focused on the addictive aspects of unnamed social media platforms and not on content.
Those include infinite scrolling, “the lights and hearts that give you a dopamine hit, a drug hit to the brain,” he said. They also allow children to upload personal information to the websites, he said.
But critics say the age limits are arbitrary and that age-verification ID requirements are vague and confusing.
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