Florida legislature passes social media ban for minors, now heads to the Governors’ desk

Tallahassee, FL — A bill to ban social media for minors is on it’s way to Governor DeSantis’ desk after passing through state legislature.

The bill passed in the House on Thursday, February 22nd with a vote of 108-7, a few hours after the Senate approved it with 23-14 vote.

The bill, HB-1, is titled, “Online Protections for Minors.”

It requires certain social media platforms to prohibit certain minors from creating new accounts and to verify the age of account holders. HB-1 also requires those certain social media platforms to terminate certain accounts and provide additional options for termination of such accounts. The bill provides penalties for those who disobey it’s terms.

Those for the bill say, social media companies cause harm to minors mental health.

“If you have an addictive platform that addicts kids, and we know that time on these platforms cause harm, then those platforms, can not allow those who are under 16 years of age on the platform,” said Speaker of the Florida House, Paul Renner. “If they remove those addictive features, they can go right back on the platform and make it kid friendly, kid safe.”

Those who oppose the bill say, it’s not the legislatures job to take minors off social media.

“The passage of HB-1 represents a blatant and disturbing continued march towards authoritarianism in the state of Florida. Protecting children and teens online is incredibly important and requires legislation that solves the problem without violating the constitutional rights of young people,” said Congressman Maxwell Frost. “To unilaterally ban those under the age of 16 from social media use is not only lazy legislating but a brazenly unconstitutional move. This will not stand.”

HB-1′s fate now heads to Governor DeSantis’ office.

“As you get into ages 14 and 15, I think it’s(social media) harmful, for them to be on some of those platforms that have certain functionality that’s addictive, I agree with that, but I also believe that parents need to have a role in this,” said Governor DeSantis. “As much as I think it’s harmful to have people on these social media platforms for five to six hours a day, a parent can supervise a kid to use it more sparingly, and so we can’t say 100 percent of social media is bad.”

DeSantis said he’s a critic of social media, but he has to look at this bill from a parents perspective.

The Governor said they’re working through the bill in Tallahassee, but the bill is “not there yet.” He said the bill needs to address all concerns from both sides before it’s executive approval.

Listen to Florida Speaker of the House, Paul Renner, talk about HB-1 on the Anez Sez podcast below:

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