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Judge grants injunction, says Florida law is "extraordinarily blunt instrument."
Credit: Getty Images | Matt Cardy
A federal judge ruled today that Florida cannot enforce a law that requires social media platforms to block kids from using their platforms. The state law "is likely unconstitutional," US Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida ruled while granting the tech industry's request for a preliminary injunction.
The Florida law "prohibits some social media platforms from allowing youth in the state who are under the age of 14 to create or hold an account on their platforms, and similarly prohibits allowing youth who are 14 or 15 to create or hold an account unless a parent or guardian provides affirmative consent for them to do so," Walker wrote.
The law is subject to intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment, meaning it must be "narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest," must "leave open ample alternative channels for communication," and must not "burden substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government's legitimate interests," the ruling said.
Florida claimed its law is designed to prevent harm to youth and is narrowly tailored because it targets sites that use specific features that have been deemed to be addictive. But the law applies too broadly, Walker found:
Even assuming the significance of the State's interest in limiting the exposure of youth to websites with "addictive features," the law's restrictions are an extraordinarily blunt instrument for furthering it. As applied to Plaintiffs' members alone, the law likely bans all youth under 14 from holding accounts on, at a minimum, four websites that provide forums for all manner of protected speech: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. It also bans 14- and 15-year-olds from holding accounts on those four websites absent a parent's affirmative consent, a requirement that the Supreme Court has clearly explained the First Amendment does not countenance.
Walker said the Florida "law applies to any social media site that employs any one of the five addictive features under any circumstances, even if, for example, the site only sends push notifications if users opt in to receiving them, or the site does not auto-play video for account holders who are known to be youth. Accordingly, even if a social media platform created youth accounts for which none of the purportedly 'addictive' features are available, it would still be barred from allowing youth to hold those accounts if the features were available to adult account holders."
Big Tech: Ruling vindicates First Amendment argument
Florida also argued that the law "is narrowly targeted only to 'platforms that have proven effective at using [the statute's purportedly 'addictive'] features to addict children,'" Walker said. The judge disagreed with Florida, writing that the law "sweeps in platforms on which ten percent or more of the 'daily active users' under 16 have spent an average of two or more hours per day during the previous 12 months. That simply means that the ability of youth under 16 to access a given social media platform will turn on how long other youth have used the platform in the last year, whether they have used it for that long because they are 'addicted' or because they simply wished to engage with speech for more than two hours per day."
The law will be on hold while litigation continues. "Plaintiffs' members face irreparable injury because the law forces them to choose between either incurring unrecoverable compliance costs and curtailing their First Amendment rights to disseminate speech to willing listeners, or risking an enforcement action that could result in penalties of up to $50,000 per violation and attorney fees and costs," Walker wrote.
Florida passed the law last year. The state was sued by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and NetChoice, two groups representing Big Tech companies such as Meta and Google.
"This ruling vindicates our argument that Florida's statute violates the First Amendment by blocking and restricting minors—and likely adults as well—from using certain websites to view lawful content," CCIA CEO Matt Schruers said. "We look forward to seeing this statute permanently blocked as a violation of Floridians' constitutional right to engage in lawful speech online."
The injunction doesn't block all of the social media restrictions in the state law. Walker said his order "leaves in place new provisions of Florida law that require covered social media platforms to terminate any account held by a youth under 16 in the state upon the request of a parent or guardian."
The Florida law also requires age verification for porn websites, but CCIA and NetChoice's requested injunction applied only to the social media provisions. Separately, a Texas state law requiring age-verification systems on porn websites is being reviewed by the Supreme Court.
In the Florida case, Walker found that there was no need to wait for the Supreme Court's ruling on the Texas law. "Defendant points to the Supreme Court's pending decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, in which it will determine the appropriate standard for assessing a law that burdens adults' access to protected speech," Walker wrote. "But there is no reason to withhold relief in this case until the Supreme Court issues its decision in Free Speech Coalition because this Court's determination of the Plaintiffs' likelihood of success on the merits does not turn on any argument regarding the law's impact on adult users' speech."
Credit: Getty Images | Matt Cardy
A federal judge ruled today that Florida cannot enforce a law that requires social media platforms to block kids from using their platforms. The state law "is likely unconstitutional," US Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida ruled while granting the tech industry's request for a preliminary injunction.
The Florida law "prohibits some social media platforms from allowing youth in the state who are under the age of 14 to create or hold an account on their platforms, and similarly prohibits allowing youth who are 14 or 15 to create or hold an account unless a parent or guardian provides affirmative consent for them to do so," Walker wrote.
The law is subject to intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment, meaning it must be "narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest," must "leave open ample alternative channels for communication," and must not "burden substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government's legitimate interests," the ruling said.
Florida claimed its law is designed to prevent harm to youth and is narrowly tailored because it targets sites that use specific features that have been deemed to be addictive. But the law applies too broadly, Walker found:
Even assuming the significance of the State's interest in limiting the exposure of youth to websites with "addictive features," the law's restrictions are an extraordinarily blunt instrument for furthering it. As applied to Plaintiffs' members alone, the law likely bans all youth under 14 from holding accounts on, at a minimum, four websites that provide forums for all manner of protected speech: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. It also bans 14- and 15-year-olds from holding accounts on those four websites absent a parent's affirmative consent, a requirement that the Supreme Court has clearly explained the First Amendment does not countenance.
Walker said the Florida "law applies to any social media site that employs any one of the five addictive features under any circumstances, even if, for example, the site only sends push notifications if users opt in to receiving them, or the site does not auto-play video for account holders who are known to be youth. Accordingly, even if a social media platform created youth accounts for which none of the purportedly 'addictive' features are available, it would still be barred from allowing youth to hold those accounts if the features were available to adult account holders."
Big Tech: Ruling vindicates First Amendment argument
Florida also argued that the law "is narrowly targeted only to 'platforms that have proven effective at using [the statute's purportedly 'addictive'] features to addict children,'" Walker said. The judge disagreed with Florida, writing that the law "sweeps in platforms on which ten percent or more of the 'daily active users' under 16 have spent an average of two or more hours per day during the previous 12 months. That simply means that the ability of youth under 16 to access a given social media platform will turn on how long other youth have used the platform in the last year, whether they have used it for that long because they are 'addicted' or because they simply wished to engage with speech for more than two hours per day."
The law will be on hold while litigation continues. "Plaintiffs' members face irreparable injury because the law forces them to choose between either incurring unrecoverable compliance costs and curtailing their First Amendment rights to disseminate speech to willing listeners, or risking an enforcement action that could result in penalties of up to $50,000 per violation and attorney fees and costs," Walker wrote.
Florida passed the law last year. The state was sued by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and NetChoice, two groups representing Big Tech companies such as Meta and Google.
"This ruling vindicates our argument that Florida's statute violates the First Amendment by blocking and restricting minors—and likely adults as well—from using certain websites to view lawful content," CCIA CEO Matt Schruers said. "We look forward to seeing this statute permanently blocked as a violation of Floridians' constitutional right to engage in lawful speech online."
The injunction doesn't block all of the social media restrictions in the state law. Walker said his order "leaves in place new provisions of Florida law that require covered social media platforms to terminate any account held by a youth under 16 in the state upon the request of a parent or guardian."
The Florida law also requires age verification for porn websites, but CCIA and NetChoice's requested injunction applied only to the social media provisions. Separately, a Texas state law requiring age-verification systems on porn websites is being reviewed by the Supreme Court.
In the Florida case, Walker found that there was no need to wait for the Supreme Court's ruling on the Texas law. "Defendant points to the Supreme Court's pending decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, in which it will determine the appropriate standard for assessing a law that burdens adults' access to protected speech," Walker wrote. "But there is no reason to withhold relief in this case until the Supreme Court issues its decision in Free Speech Coalition because this Court's determination of the Plaintiffs' likelihood of success on the merits does not turn on any argument regarding the law's impact on adult users' speech."
