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Internet Groups File Constitutional Challenge to Renner-Led Social Media Law Restricting Access

October 28, 2024 | FlaglerLive | 6 Comments

renner voucher expansion
Paul Renner. (© FlaglerLive)

In a long-anticipated move, two internet-industry groups Monday filed a constitutional challenge to a new Florida law aimed at keeping children off social-media platforms.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, whose members include tech giants such as Google and Meta Platforms, said in a federal lawsuit that the law violates First Amendment rights and that parents should make decisions about children’s social-media use.




“While states certainly have a legitimate interest in protecting minors who use such services, restricting the ability of minors (and adults) to access them altogether is not a narrowly tailored means of advancing any such interest,” the 48-page lawsuit said. “In a nation that values the First Amendment, the preferred response is to let parents decide what speech and mediums their minor children may access — including by utilizing the many available tools to monitor their activities on the internet.”

The law (HB 3) was a priority of House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, and became one of the biggest issues of the 2024 legislative session. Industry groups repeatedly signaled they would challenge the constitutionality of the law — with Renner and Attorney General Ashley Moody vowing to defend it.

“You better believe, I am going to fight like hell to uphold this in court,” Moody said in March during an event where Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill.

The law, in part, seeks to prevent children under age 16 from opening social-media accounts on some 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.

Renner and other key supporters argued that social-media companies have created addictive platforms that harm children’s mental health and can lead to sexual predators communicating with minors.

Renner said in March the law focuses on addictive features of the platforms and not on social-media content — an approach that he said was designed to withstand a First Amendment challenge. The law is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.




“You will not find a line in this bill that addresses good speech or bad speech because that would violate the First Amendment. We’ve not addressed that at all,” Renner, an attorney, said. “What we have addressed is the addictive features that are at the heart of why children stay on these platforms for hours and hours on end.”

But Monday’s lawsuit, filed in the federal Northern District of Florida, said similar laws have been blocked by courts in other states. It said Florida “cannot begin to show that its draconian access restrictions are necessary to advance any legitimate interest it may assert.”

“Parents already have a wealth of tools at their disposal to limit what online services their minor children use, what they can do on those services, and how often they can use them,” the lawsuit said. “Florida may wish that more Floridians shared its own views about whether minors should use ‘social media platforms.’ But while the state may take many steps to protect minors from harm, including by persuading parents to take advantage of tools to limit their minor children’s access to ‘social media platforms,’ it may not take matters into its own hands and restrict access itself.”

The law does not name social-media platforms that would be affected. But it includes a definition of such platforms, with criteria related to such things as algorithms, “addictive features” and allowing users to view the content or activities of other users.




The lawsuit repeatedly referred to sites such as YouTube and Facebook — while also saying the law would not apply to services such as Disney+.

“While the law purports to address ‘addictive features,’ it does not restrict access to all mediums that employ similar features to engage their audience,” attorneys for the industry groups wrote. “The law leaves services like Disney+, Hulu, and Roblox uncovered, even though many minors spend hours on those services each day, and even though they employ the same so-called ‘addictive features,’ like personalized algorithms, push notifications, and autoplay. The state’s only evident justification for restricting access to Facebook and YouTube while leaving many other mediums for speech untouched is the state’s apparent belief that the covered websites deliver content the state thinks is particularly harmful.”

If social-media companies violate the law they could face penalties up to $50,000 per violation. The law also would open them to lawsuits filed on behalf of minors.

The lawsuit, which names Moody as a defendant, seeks an injunction to prevent the restrictions from moving forward. It does not challenge a separate part of the law requiring age verification to try to prevent minors under age 18 from having access to online pornographic sites.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice also have been locked in a long-running legal fight with the state over a 2021 law that placed restrictions on large social-media companies. Those restrictions included preventing the platforms from banning political candidates from their sites and requiring companies to publish — and apply consistently — standards about issues such as banning users or blocking their content.

A federal district judge and an appeals court blocked much of the 2021 law on First Amendment grounds, but the U.S. Supreme Court this year sent the case back for further consideration.

–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Nephew Of Uncle Sam says

    October 28, 2024 at 6:54 pm

    I hope the door hits Renner on the way out. Florida taxpayers get to pay again to defend a bill that RonDUH, Renner and the puppet GOP Legislature passed that they knew would not hold up.

    4
  2. Bartholomew says

    October 28, 2024 at 8:13 pm

    He will run for governor

  3. A Concerned Observer says

    October 29, 2024 at 11:41 am

    Sorry Nephew. Take a step back and remember WHEN our constitution was written. You CANNOT take those words out of context and attempt to apply them to the present. Constitutional safeguards on Separation of Church and State and Freedom of Speech were necessary back then because they remembered why they all left England with the power of the Monarchy and the Church of England behind. Adults today need to protect 6 to 18 year old children from the scammers, unscrupulous sales pitches and pedophiles out there far more than any concern whatsoever over their “Constitutional Rights”. Unfortunately, parents today are too busy trying to make a living and fail to parent their children. Let the kids lay in the grass and count the ants but protect them from the snakes.

  4. me says

    October 29, 2024 at 2:01 pm

    The MAGA Project 2025 Politicians, better known as the Trumps Boys Club. Would happily vote them all out of office.

  5. BIG Neighbor says

    November 1, 2024 at 6:47 am

    You figure for every click on the keyboard, five or six data points are created by producer-automation to build and classify a user by e-commerce modeling as a digital twin to build a digital thread. That means the more a person uses internet providers services like social media to gather and tell their information by reacting to their screen, the greater chance marketers have of pulling their emotional string to steering them away from their own interests and into the realm of violent actors outside of their own interests like what we’re seeing in the great political divide. This drives financial incentives by industrialists to give users access to forums that will feed their emotions to snare them into a virtual gang mentality. And now, with social-emotional learning using automation to gather and build early-childhood (https://www.covitality.com/), consumer learner profiles through surveys given in schools by leading academic institutions, it seems obvious this goes so deep that it’s impossible to see the wolves hidden beneath sheep’s clothing. The fact that this type of survey testing is considered viable as it “protects” sensitive data is hogwash as we know breeches occur. To me, this is the biggest persistent, insider threat to our safety and next generation. So what’s the answer? It’s hard but rewarding work. Urge your local municipalities of government to stop posting information on social media platforms and reinstall consumer protections broken down from corporate interests as deregulation (Section 230). Get better informed about next generational infrastructure to alter behavior, be minful of the keyboard and join local community-based clubs, associations and nonprofits to support communities in physical spaces and relationships.

  6. BIG Neighbor says

    November 1, 2024 at 7:04 am

    My research on new computer literacy:
    Repeated uses of cell phones, computer games or social media platforms can alter normal behaviors in the user. Concentric LIKE ME enable subscription services can lead to consumer habits that distort user perceptions where gaslighting can create tendencies for inducing paranoia in some or extreme acts in others.

    Often lurking with these LIKE communities on social media, bad actors called elicitors gather sensitive or secretive information from unsuspecting people online about themselves, friends, family members or employers. Motivated by personal, monetary or political gain, elicitors misrepresent themselves by pretending to be sincere or caring when engaging others in order to establish trust. They are trained to get their subjects comfortable to talk openly about themselves, sharing information they should not reveal to strangers.
    For further information, refer to the FBI Elicitation-brochure:
    https://ucr.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/elicitation-brochure
    also…
    Gateway to research testing, accidental or intentional bias eschewing test results HHS workshop findings for consumer protections.
    DO NO HARM and creepy data surveys
    https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/sites/default/files/report-privacy-and-health-10-31-19.pdf
    (key concepts-physical-cyber environments, properties and personal boundaries)
    New DHS tools for critical thinking and emotional intelligence while behind the keyboard:
    https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/digital_media_literacy_1.pdf

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