TALLAHASSEE — Arguing that a district judge’s ruling “puts millions of kids at risk,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday asked a federal appeals court to allow the state to enforce a law targeting social-media platforms while a legal battle plays out.
Uthmeier requested that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold a preliminary injunction that Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued last week blocking the law. Walker ruled that the 2024 law, which is designed to keep children off certain social-media platforms, likely violated First Amendment rights.
But in asking the Atlanta-based appeals court for a stay of the preliminary injunction, Uthmeier disputed that the law (HB 3) violates speech rights and said it regulates commercial activity.
The law seeks to prevent children under age 16 from opening accounts on certain 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. Supporters of the restrictions say addictive features of social media harm minors’ mental health.
“Here, there is no disputing that HB 3 does not directly regulate expression; it simply prohibits platforms that use addictive features from contracting with certain children,” lawyers in Uthmeier’s office wrote in Monday’s motion for a stay of the injunction. “Contracting — especially with children — is commercial activity that has been regulated since the (nation’s) founding.”
A stay, if granted, would not resolve the underlying constitutional issues. But it could allow Uthmeier to enforce the law during what likely will be months of battling at the appeals court over the preliminary injunction.
Uthmeier quickly launched an appeal after Walker sided with arguments by the tech-industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association and granted the injunction. The groups, whose members include companies such as Google, Meta Platforms and Snap Inc., the operator of Snapchat, filed the lawsuit in October.
In his ruling, Walker pointed, in part, to the role of parents in policing social-media use by their children.
“An established principle in the First Amendment context is that enabling individuals to voluntarily restrict problematic content at the receiving end is preferred over restricting speech at the source,” Walker wrote in the June 3 ruling. “In this context, that means that parents are best positioned to make the appropriately individualized determinations about whether or when their children should use social media platforms, and if so, which platforms and under what conditions.”
The law, which was one of the biggest issues of the 2024 legislative session, does not directly identify which platforms would be affected by the regulations. But it includes a definition of such platforms, with criteria related to such things as algorithms, “addictive features” and livestreaming. Walker’s ruling said, for example, it would apply to Snapchat and YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Uthmeier in April filed a lawsuit alleging that the operator of Snapchat had violated the law. Monday’s filing said the preliminary injunction “halted a pending state enforcement action.” Also, the motion said Uthmeier’s office has subpoenaed Roblox, an online game platform.
The motion said the law “targets only platforms that present a higher risk of addicting children” and that the preliminary injunction “puts millions of kids at risk by allowing platforms to ignore HB 3 and continue practices” that pose a danger to children’s mental health.