Speaker of the Florida House, Paul Renner, Leads Bipartisan Attempt to Reign In Social Media
HB 1 defines term, “social media.” Sponsors advocate to “serve a compelling state interest to keep our children safe.” Senator, Erin Grall (R-Indian River, Highlands, Okeechobee) filed companion bill.
Speaker of the Florida House, Paul Renner has decided his lead legislation for the 2024 session is HB 1, Social Media Use for Minors. The bill requires “social media platforms to prohibit minors from creating new accounts, terminate accounts & provide additional options for termination of such accounts, use reasonable age verification methods to verify ages of account holders,” among other directives. The bipartisan sponsors of the Judiciary Committee bill are Rep. Tyler Sirios (R - Merritt Island), Rep. Fiona McFarland (R - Sarasota) and Rep. Michelle Rayner (D - St. Petersburg). On Tuesday, they took questions on the House floor.
In the Senate, Erin Grall (R) filed the corresponding legislation SB 1788, Age Verification for Social Media Platform Accounts. In his second reading of the bill before the Florida House, Rep. Sirios declared that “House Bill 1 will prohibit a social media company from allowing a minor, under the age of 16, to create a new social media account.”
Rep. Sirios continued with citing studies from Pew Research and Mayo Clinic concerning rising suicide rates and other mental health concerns particularly among young girls who use social media more than three hours in a day. He remarked, “Social media companies are well aware of this danger. Former executives and whistleblowers have acknowledged that these platforms are designed to exploit our children’s vulnerabilities, deploying features that are addictive. Like digital fentanyl, children are challenged to break these habits.”
After declaring that social media deprives minors of “sleep and sunshine,” and urging members to protect our children from the “effects of these addictive features, mental health disorders caused by excessive use, and the risk of exposure to predatory activities,” Sirios reminded lawmakers that for social media companies to comply with this bill, the tech companies must terminate existing accounts of minors under the age of 16 years old including the full deletion of their current data.
Sirios pointed out as well that social media companies would be required to use a third-party age verification service when signing-up new accounts. Data collected to verify user identification must be deleted upon confirmation. Social media companies would also have to produce disclosure statements much like warnings on cigarette packaging admonishing account holders about overusing and various other mental health concerns.
In a quick study of social media companies’ ‘terms of service’ documentation, The Sunshine Journal has learned Facebook, Instagram, Snap Inc. (Snapchat), X, Instagram, and Threads require users to be 13 years old or older. YouTube, Truth Social and TikTok require account users to be the age of 18 for users without parental supervision. These three have parental guidance permissions for ages 13-18. Rep. Anna Eskamani (D - Orlando), who’s amendment failed to lower the requiring age of minor account holders to 13 years old, asked, “Which prominent social media companies will be affected by this legislation?”
Rep. Sirios didn’t answer which specific social media companies would be affected by HB 1. However, Sirios did respond, “We are not looking at any particular platform, but what we are looking at is tailoring this legislation to addictive features like autoplay for example, infinite scrolling and push notifications that provide that dopamine hit; other features that are intentionally designed to capture and hold our kids’ attention.”
The sponsors were not going to call out specific social media companies but rather rely on their definition of a “social media platform” found within the bill. Yet, not all online use by minors is fraught with such psychological danger. Their bill has carved out the typical uses for education. When Rep. Robin Bartleman (D - Broward) brought up concerns after a meeting in her office with AP students who use YouTube for lessons, supplemental instruction and assignments, Rep. McFarland answered,
“I think it is important that we do not malign any particular company as we talk about the protections under this bill, but our definition of a social media company under this bill talks about tracking or interacting with other users or account holders, uploading content… social media companies that are able to track the activity of an account holder.”
YouTube is used by millions as an education platform for everyday life. You can learn to fix about any car available on the market. You can learn to be an electrician, gardener, chef, guitar player, or learn to shoot a proper three point jump shot, and then learn about the discovery of the universe’s cosmic microwave background. The learning content is endless by many regular people who happen to have an expertise. Some students use it for learning specific resume strategies for employment in their favorite career.
However, besides education exceptions, the absolute restriction in the bill eliminates from social media minors who make income from being social media influencers. One can hardly go a day on social media without seeing the prodigious creativity of youth inspiring their peers, and many times adults, to achieve in their own personal endeavors. Rep. Ashley Gantt (D - Miami-Dade) first asked, “Is there a parental opt-in or opt-out in this bill?”
Sirios responded, “No,” emphatically. Rep. Gantt followed-up. “For minors who are social media influencers and make money off of their presence online, will they be restricted from continuing in that economic endeavor?”
Sirios emphatically answered, “Yes.”
This bill is packaged with House Bill 3, Online Access to Materials Harmful to Minors, that was also read a second time on Tuesday and examined on the House floor. Again, Senator Erin Grall wrote the corresponding bill, SB 1792, Online Access to Materials Harmful to Minors. House Bill 3 deals directly with content harmful to minors such as pornography websites. Last January, Common Sense Media released a survey of 1,300 youth between the ages of 13 and 17 that found 73% of teens had seen pornography online, with 54% eyeballing it for the first time by age 13. According to the study, the average age of a minor first seeing pornography was 12 years old.
The FBI has concluded that since 1996, images of child pornography on the World Wide Web have increased in volume by 2000%. There are other alarming statistics. Covenant Eyes, an organization that provides accountability software for people who want wholesome internet experiences or have struggled with online pornography, shares that “just 55% of adults 25 and older believe porn is wrong,” as well as statistics of the extreme extent in which teens engage pornography online. There are entrepreneurs in the market addressing the issue of pornography addiction. Legislators want to adopt measures to protect children from it. The bill did not receive much pushback from House members.
Yet, concerning HB 1, the hotly debated approach by state House members to define a business, “social media,” and, to bring the companies in compliance with the state government’s requirements for that business are the stated goals. Rep. Sirios offered, “Once our bill is out there in the domain, the market can choose whether or not to respond to the standards put in place… to serve a compelling state interest to keep our children safe.”
In 2023, Renner led with school choice and multiple education bills addressing the recent Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) issues, parental rights regarding mental health, and pornography in public school libraries. Signed into law by Governor DeSantis, House Bill 1069 gave parents the ability to publicly address library book challenges at school board meetings. Indian River County parents took the lead in the state, reading explicit evidence at a school board meeting on August 28, 2023. Over 40 presentations by members precipitated a review and removal of over 230 titles containing pornographic content.
Some who have viewed the explicit and direct sweeping nature of HB 1 believe it removes fundamental parental responsibility. Rep. Gantt proposed a parental opt-in amendment leaning on the philosophy of the House that in 2021, established Florida’s Parental Bill of Rights, and in 2022 and 2023, Parental Rights in Education and multiple pro-parenting bills. In answering questions on her proposed amendment she quoted the position of Moms for Liberty co-founder, Tiffany Justice, and further reasoned, “I think that parents should be involved in their children’s lives across the board. This would actually encourage, especially with teens, to make sure their parents were up to date with online platforms.”
Yet, that amendment was voted down 83-33.
Allowing “inspiring” young entrepreneurs as an exception can open the door to more human trafficking. If you want to start an internet business and are under age, then it should get reviewed by the FCC or the like.