Republicans have advanced legislation in Florida and Iowa aimed at protecting children and empowering parents with regard to their social media use.

House Bill 3 in Florida and House File 2523 in the Hawkeye State both appear to be meaningful efforts by lawmakers to ensure that parents have a say in whether giant companies can enter into contracts with their kids, collect data about their kids, and subject their kids to potentially harmful content.

Big tech lobbyists and leftist activists have once again expressed their displeasure over such efforts to help families shield children from well-documented online harms.

Iowa's HF 2523

The "Social Media Parental Authorization Act" passed the state House with bipartisan support in a 88 to 6 vote on March 6.

The bill would preclude social media companies from allowing minors to be account holders on their platforms unless they have received prior express parental authorization. Social media companies would also be required to allow "a parent or guardian who has provided parental authorization to revoke or rescind the grant of parental authorization upon request at any time."

Facebook, TikTok, and other similar companies would be forbidden from collecting data on minors whose accounts were not created with the blessing of their parents.

Under the proposed law, social media companies would further be required to provide authorizing parents with a password or some other means to access their child's account so that they they can view posts and private messages; manage time spent on the platform; and adjust privacy settings.

The state attorney general would be empowered to bring civil action against social media companies found in violation of the proposed law and slap offenders with penalties of at least $10,000 per violation.

The Des Moines Register reported that its recent polling found that 55% of Iowans support the bill, 3% indicated they were unsure, and 42% signaled opposition to the bill.

Support for the legislation is even stronger among parents with minor children, 57% of whom expressed favor for HB 2523.

It garnered the support of 61% of Republican respondents, 39% of Democratic respondents, and 57% of independent respondents in the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll.

"I think the intent of this bill is very good," said state Rep. Sami Scheetz (D). "As somebody who grew up during the age of social media, I know firsthand some of the harms that can have on the mental health of children in our state."

Florida's HB 3

HB 3 is the second attempt in recent weeks at an online child protections bill in the Sunshine State. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) vetoed an earlier version of the online protections bill on March 1, noting that "the Legislature is about to produce a different, superior bill."

DeSantis wrote on X, "Protecting children from harms associated with social media is important, as is supporting parents' rights and maintaining the ability of adults to engage in anonymous speech. I anticipate the new bill will recognize these priorities and will be signed into law soon."

Whereas the previous version would have required various social media platforms to bar anyone under 16 from creating an account, HB 3 — passed by the House in a 109 to 4 vote — would require social media companies to obtain parental consent before allowing users ages 14 and 15 onto their platforms.

If ratified by DeSantis, HB 3 will require social media platforms to:

• Bar minors under the age of 14 from entering into a contract to become an account holder;
• Terminate any account held by persons under the age of 14 and provide 90 days for the user to dispute such termination;
• Allow for users under 14 to request to terminate their accounts;
• Permanently delete all information held by the platform associated with such terminated accounts; and
• Terminate accounts for 14- and 15-year-old users if they fail to obtain parental consent.

Just as in Iowa, violations could land social media companies significant penalties.

HB 3 also requires commercial entities operating websites that contain "a substantial portion of material harmful to minors" to use anonymous or standard age verification to ensure users are 18 or older. News, news gathering organizations, internet service providers, search engines, and cloud service providers are exempt.

Florida's Voice News reported that critics of the bill, including Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon, have suggested the bill is unconstitutional and will inevitably be challenged in the courts.

The ACLU of Florida suggested that HB 3 amounts to a "censorship bill aimed at stifling freedom of expression online by requiring all users, including adults, to verify their age by providing age verification documentation before using existing social media accounts or creating new ones."

"The age-verification requirements in HB 3 place barriers between users, whether they're adults or minors, and their constitutional right to speak online," said Kara Gross, legislative director of the ACLU of Florida.

NetChoice — a Big Tech lobby group representing Facebook, TikTok, and X — called on DeSantis to veto the bill, claiming in a March 7 letter that HB 3 "would violate minors' First Amendment rights by imposing a blanket restriction on access to constitutionally protected speech for anyone who is either under the age of 14 or refuses to comply with its parental consent requirements."

Republican state Rep. Tyler Sirois, who filed the House version of the bill with Rep. Michel Rayner (D), said, "We must end this experiment on our children. Members, we are not opening a Pandora's box, we're closing one."

Republican Speaker Paul Renner stressed the legislation will prove life-saving, reported the Associated Press.

"We know that social media is the main platform for sexual crimes against children," said Renner. "We know that it's a place where they are bullied online, where their self-image is torn down online. It leads to major mental health issues, contemplation of suicide, acts of self-harm, spikes in anorexia, and the list goes on and on and on."

Broader context

Similar laws have recently been passed with mixed success in other red states.

Utah passed SB 152 last year requiring social media companies to obtain parental consent before allowing minors to maintain or open an account. As of March 1, 2024, the state also requires age verification when opening a social media account; curfew settings on children's social media accounts; and minor accounts to be hidden from search results.

Arkansas similarly sought to protect children with SB 396, which Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) ratified in April 2023 and was supposed to go into effect on September 1, 2023; however, an Obama-nominated federal judge granted NetChoice a temporary injunction against the law in August.

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