Lobby groups sue to block Florida’s age verification requirements for social media

NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) are suing the state of Florida to prevent social media companies from being required to perform age verification to enforce restrictions on young people in the state using their platforms.

Florida’s HB 3 bans people under 14 years old from using social media, and requires parental permission of people aged 14 and 15. It also requires that platforms enforce these rules with age assurance checks, though it is somewhat vague about the allowable methods.

CCIA and NetChoice v. Moody filed their challenge to HB 3 at the beginning of last week in federal court. They then amended it at the end of last week to include not just Attorney General Ashley Brooke Moody, but also the state’s 7 elections commissioners. The inclusion of elections commissioners is based on an allegation that the HB 3’s “deplatforming” provision violates a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on what constitutes protected speech by depriving platforms of their content curation decisions.

NetChoice makes the curious argument that collecting data from children makes them vulnerable to identity theft, and therefore their access to social media should not be blocked by age checks. Age checks could make their data vulnerable to hacking. The sale of user data to marketing and advertising companies is one of the main sources of revenue for social media platforms.

The Federal Trade Commission blasted social media platforms for data handling practices that introduce a range of risks for users, and young people in particular, in a September report.

NetChoice argues that HB 3 violates the first amendment, a familiar argument in the one age verification debate. The group also argues that the bill requires companies to collect data about Floridians, risks their cybersecurity and digital safety by creating honeypots of data, “puts the government in charge of parenting” and is more restrictive than other options available, like digital educational programs.

HB 3 specifies both “anonymous” and “standard age verification” measures, defining the former as one in which no identifying information is stored.  The bill does not specify a requirement for the collection or use of ID documents. Moody’s regulations specify that parental consent options “may include” “obtaining documents” to prove the relationship. Biometric facial age estimation, on the other hand, does not require the collection of personal information.

The CCIA emphasizes the primacy of parents in deciding what their children can and can’t do online, and the tools they have for enforcing their will. It also makes a similar argument that HB 3 violates the First Amendment “by creating significant barriers to accessing online information that every American, including minors, has a right to see.”

CCIA members include Amazon, Google, X, Apple, Cloudflare, eBay and Uber.

A federal judge ruled in September that some provisions of Texas’ SCOPE Act violate the First Amendment, but others requiring age verification for access to adult content do not. That lawsuit was also brought by NetChoice and the CCIA. NetChoice won a similar split decision in California in August, but the closest comparison may be to a lawsuit against an age assurance law in Utah that would have mandated age checks for social media, which NetChoice defeated in federal court on constitutional grounds in September. The court found that the state had failed to pinpoint an “actual problem” and that the law was not narrowly tailored enough to meet strict scrutiny standards.

Governor Ron de Santis signed HB 3 into law in April, and it is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2025.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  digital identity  |  face biometrics  |  Florida  |  lawsuits  |  Netchoice  |  social media