JACKSONVILLE, Fla. —
THE QUESTION
Will children under 14 who are on social media have their accounts closed when Florida's House Bill 3 takes effect?
OUR SOURCES
Paul Renner (R), Speaker of the Florida House
Carl Szabo, Vice President and General Counsel of NetChoice, a tech trade association, and a professor of internet law at George Mason Law School
THE ANSWER
Yes, children under 14 in Florida may have their accounts on social media closed if HB 3 passes.
WHAT WE FOUND
Florida's House Bill 3 was signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in March 2024. It's set to take effect January 1, 2025. It will require certain social media platforms to terminate the accounts of children under 14.
"They should be immediately removed if the platforms know that they are of a certain age," Renner said. "And we believe they know that now."
According to House Bill 3, social media platforms will also be required to delete all the personal information of those under 14 and prohibit them from creating new accounts. For children 14 and 15 years old, their accounts will also be closed unless consent is given by their parent or guardian. While the legislation doesn't name any social media platforms, Renner says it only applies to those that meet certain criteria.
"To fall under our bill, a platform has to have a personalized algorithm that targets and surveils your child to offer curated content and keep them online as long as possible. Secondly, addictive features like notifications, hearts and likes, and infinite scroll that make you want to be on the platform and stay on the platform," Renner said. "The ability thirdly, to upload content but also to have downloading content...And then fourth, is 10% of the daily active users are on the platform at least two hours or more per day."
Renner says the bill does not prohibit children from getting on their parents social media accounts.
"They can certainly get on mom or dad's accounts to share information, but children are not allowed to have their own accounts where they're subject to this addictive technology," Renner said.
Szabo believes the law is unconstitutional and will be challenged in court.
"Anyone that they think might be under the age of 14 immediately is going to have your account terminated or might be under the age of 14 immediately is going to have your account terminated," Szabo said. "You then have 90 days to prove you are who you say you are, and you are the age you say you are. And I don't even know how you would do that without turning over documents."
We can verify, yes, social media platforms that meet certain criteria will be required to terminate the accounts of children under 14 when the law takes effect.
"We hope somebody brings a suit to prevent it from ever taking effect. And the problem is, you can't just say everyone under 14, because we don't know who they are. It's not as though people who signed up for accounts are necessarily truthful about the age that they use," Szabo said.
The Florida attorney general will be responsible for enforcing this law, and social media companies could face a $50,000 fine per violation.
"And if there's a pattern or practice where they're doing this, again, systematically with tens and hundreds and thousands of kids, as they are doing now with millions of kids, then the Attorney General can go in and seek punitive damages, as well as a parent. If a child gets on without their knowledge and consent, a platform let them on, then the parent also has a cause of action up to $10,000 per violation brought by the parent on behalf of the child," Renner said.
We reached out to several of the major social media platforms including TikTok, Snapchat, and Meta. They have not provided us with a comment for this story.