TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Industry groups have filed a revised constitutional challenge to a 2024 Florida law aimed at keeping children off some social-media platforms, after a federal judge this month rejected an initial request for an injunction.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice on Friday filed a revised lawsuit and a revised request for a preliminary injunction. The groups, which contend the law violates First Amendment rights, challenged the law in October.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker on March 13 turned down a request for a preliminary injunction, saying the groups had not shown they had legal standing to challenge the law (HB 3).
The revised lawsuit describes how the law could affect Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, all of which are members of at least one of the groups. The law, which was one of the biggest issues of the 2024 legislative session, did not name platforms that would be affected but included 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.
“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 groups’ attorneys argued in one of the documents filed Friday. “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. Like similar laws that have preceded it, HB 3 violates the First Amendment.”
The law, which was spearheaded by then-House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, seeks to prevent children under age 16 from opening social-media accounts on platforms covered by the criteria — though it would allow parents to give consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to have accounts. Children under 14 could not open accounts.
Supporters of the law said platforms include addictive features that have harmed children’s mental health. State lawyers have contended, in part, that the law’s restrictions regulate commercial activity — not speech.
In his March 13 ruling on the initial motion for a preliminary injunction, Walker did not decidethe First Amendment issue. Instead, he pointed to legal precedents and said the industry groups, which asserted what is known as associational standing, had not met a legal test of showing that at least one group member would “have standing to sue in its own right.”
“This court recognizes that, to a lay observer, it may seem counterintuitive or even absurd to conclude that there is no case or controversy between the plaintiffs here — two trade associations representing, among others, several major social media companies —and the attorney general of Florida, who is charged with enforcing a law that regulates some social media companies,” Walker wrote. “But the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit (the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) have developed a rigorous, fact-intensive test for standing that this court must faithfully apply.”
The revised 65-page lawsuit outlined potential effects on Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. It said, for example, that because Snapchat is likely covered by the law, it will “hinder Snap’s ability to communicate with its users.”
“Snapchat curates and disseminates content to users that Snapchat thinks will be particularly relevant to them,” the revised lawsuit said. “Snapchat selects the content it disseminates to a particular user based in part on the content that the user has interacted with in the past (via the user’s account) and Snapchat’s own rules about what content is appropriate. By restricting users from creating accounts on Snapchat, HB 3 burdens Snap’s exercise of First Amendment rights.”
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 law was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, but the state’s lawyers in November agreed not to enforce it until a ruling on the request for a preliminary injunction.
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