A new Florida law requires apps like Instagram and TikTok to seek the consent of parents before giving accounts to children below the age of 14. The law on Monday made Florida the first state to introduce such a statute that is likely to upend the lives of several children.
DeSantis Mandates Parental Consent for Children Under 14 to Open Social Media Accounts
Signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the landmark law became one of the most restrictive measures adopted by a state government so far in an escalating nationwide push to protect young people from potential mental health and safety risks caused by social media platforms. Besides prohibiting certain social networks from giving accounts to children below the age of 14, the law also requires the services to terminate accounts on the aforementioned platforms that they knew or believed belonged to an underage user.
However, the law does not completely shut down the possibility of opening an account being underaged. With parent’s permission, even an underaged is still able to open an account on Instagram and TikTok.
“Being buried in devices is not the best way to grow up, “ Mr DeSantis remarked In the Monday press conference, adding that the new measure will further help parents navigate “difficult terrain” online. According to him, social media is capable of harming children in a variety of ways, and the new bill will give parents “a greater ability to protect their children.”
This is not the first time DeSantis has taken a stand for the children’s mental health as he previously had vetoed a bill that would have banned social media for underaged children even with the consent of the parents. The governor said that the earlier bill would bring a negative impact on parent’s rights to interfere and make decisions on behalf of their children.
The new measure is expected to face constitutional challenges over companies’ rights to distribute information and young people’s rights to freely seek information. Recently, federal judges in several other states have lifted less restrictive online safety laws after lawsuits brought by NetChoice, a tech industry trade group that represents social networks including TikTok, Meta, and Snap entered the scene.
Following this, Judges in Arkansas and Ohio have halted laws in those states that initially required certain networks to obtain a parent’s permission as well as verify the user’s age before giving accounts to children below the age of 16 or 18. Similarly, a federal judge in California has also blocked a law in that state that required certain networks and video game apps to turn off certain features like auto-playing videos and others by default and turn on default privacy settings for minors.
In addition to social media restrictions, the new Florida measure also requires online pornography services to implement an age-verification system to keep minors away from their operations.
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Currently, apps including Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram already have policies that prohibit children under the age of 13 from opening individual accounts. This is based on the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act which requires parental permission to provide a set of personal information such as full names, selfie photos, contact information, and locations, from underaged children.
However, reports state that despite these regulations, millions of underage children are signing up for social media accounts using false birth dates, and impersonating an adult.