A federal judge Tuesday blocked a 2024 Florida law aimed at keeping children off social media platforms, saying it likely violates First Amendment rights and pointing to the role of parents in policing social media use.
“An established principle in the First Amendment context is that enabling individuals to voluntarily restrict problematic content at the receiving end is preferred over restricting speech at the source,” Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote in a 58-page opinion. “In this context, that means that parents are best positioned to make the appropriately individualized determinations about whether or when their children should use social media platforms, and if so, which platforms and under what conditions.”
Walker issued a preliminary injunction sought by the tech-industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include companies such as Google, Meta Platforms and Snap Inc., the operator of Snapchat. The groups filed the lawsuit in October.
The law, which was one of the top issues of the 2024 legislative session, seeks to prevent children under age 16 from opening social media accounts on certain platforms — though it would allow parents to give consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to have accounts. Children under 14 could not open accounts.
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The law does not directly identify which platforms would be affected by the regulations. But it includes a definition of such platforms, with criteria related to such things as algorithms, “addictive features” and livestreaming. Tuesday’s opinion said, for example, that it would apply to YouTube, which is owned by Google, and Snapchat.
Supporters of the law said it targets addictive features of social media platforms that harm children. But Walker concluded that it was not “narrowly tailored” to meet First Amendment legal tests. The injunction does not apply to part of the law that would require platforms to remove children’s social media accounts if requested by parents.
“Although this court today finds that Florida’s challenged law is likely unconstitutional, it does not doubt that parents and legislators in the state have sincere concerns about the effects that social media use may have on youth, nor does it render parents or the state powerless to address those concerns,” Walker wrote. “For example, this order leaves in place new provisions of Florida law that require covered social media platforms to terminate any account held by a youth under 16 in the state upon the request of a parent or guardian. Instead, like other district courts around the country, this court simply recognizes that the First Amendment places stringent requirements on the state to avoid substantially burdening speech unless the state can show that doing so is necessary to achieve its significant interests.”
Walker in March rejected an initial request by the industry groups for a preliminary injunction, saying they had not shown they had legal standing to fight the measure. The groups filed a revamped lawsuit on March 28, and Tuesday’s opinion said they had met standing requirements.
The law was initially scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, but the state’s attorneys in November agreed not to enforce it until Walker ruled on the plaintiffs’ first request for a preliminary injunction.
After the March ruling rejecting that preliminary-injunction request, Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit alleging that Snap Inc. had violated the law. The Snap case also is pending before Walker.
Walker acknowledged in Tuesday’s opinion that he expects the state to appeal the preliminary injunction to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He declined to put his ruling on hold while the appeal plays out. Uthmeier is the named defendant in the case.
“Defendant has every right to appeal, and this court sees no reason to delay defendant in seeking an appeal by requiring him to move to stay,” he wrote.
