TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – In a long-awaited move, two Internet industry groups filed a constitutional challenge Monday to a new Florida law designed to keep 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 use of social media children.

“While states certainly have a legitimate interest in protecting minors who use such services, restricting the ability of minors (and adults) to access them entirely is not a strictly tailored means of furthering such an interest,” it said. the 48-page process. “In a nation that values ​​the First Amendment, the preferred response is to let parents decide what speech and media their minor children can access, including by using the many tools available to monitor their Internet activities.”

The law (HB 3) has been a priority of House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, and has become one of the biggest issues of the 2024 legislative session. Industry groups have repeatedly signaled they will challenge the law’s constitutionality – Renner and Attorney General Ashley Moody vowing to defend her.

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

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The law, in part, seeks to prevent children under 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 advocates have 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 that the law focuses on the addictive features of the platforms and not the content of social media — an approach he said was designed to meet the First Amendment challenge. The law is scheduled to take effect on January 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 haven’t addressed that at all,” said Renner, an attorney. “What we’ve addressed are the addictive features that are at the heart of why kids sit on these platforms for hours and hours.”

But Monday’s lawsuit, filed in the Northern Federal 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 can assert.”

“Parents already have many tools available to them to limit the online services their minor children use, what they can do with those services, and how often they can use them,” the suit says. “Florida might want more Floridians to share their own opinions about whether minors should be using ‘social media platforms.’ But while the state can take many steps to protect minors from harm, including 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 the access itself. “

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

The lawsuit repeatedly referred to sites like YouTube and Facebook — while also saying the law wouldn’t apply to services like Disney+.

“While the law purports to address ‘addictive features,’ it does not restrict access to all media that use similar features to engage their audiences,” lawyers for the industry groups wrote. “The law leaves services like Disney+, Hulu and Roblox uncovered even though many minors spend hours on those services every day and even though they use the same so-called ‘addictive features’ like custom algorithms, push notifications and playback automatic. . The state’s only apparent justification for restricting access to Facebook and YouTube while leaving many other mediums of speech untouched is the state’s apparent belief that the covered websites provide content that the state deems particularly harmful.”

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

The suit, which names Moody as a defendant, seeks an injunction to prevent the restrictions from progressing. It does not challenge a separate part of the law that requires age verification to try to prevent minors under 18 from accessing pornographic sites online.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association and NetChoice have also been locked in a long-running legal battle with the state over a 2021 law that imposed restrictions on large social media companies. Those restrictions include preventing platforms from banning political candidates from their sites and requiring companies to publish — and consistently enforce — standards on 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.

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