Florida Bans 14 year olds from Social Media

[ADM S Osman]

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law banning children under age 14 from having their own social media accounts

Following other Republican-led states amid a national push to crack down on minors’ access to online platforms over safety fears.

“You can have a kid in the house safe, seemingly, and then you have predators that can get right in there into your own home,” DeSantis said during a news conference Monday. “You could be doing everything right, but they know how to get and manipulate these different platforms.”

The new law prohibits children 13 and younger from creating social media profiles and requires parental consent for those who are 14 and 15. Social media platforms will be required to delete existing accounts for children younger than 14 — though account holders will have a 90-day period to dispute terminations. If platforms “knowingly or recklessly” violate the law, they face up to $50,000 per violation in civil penalties. The bill also bans minors from “pornographic or sexually explicit” websites and requires age verification to access these sites.

Major social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, require users to be at least 13 — a requirement that stems from the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, which banned the collection of children’s personal data without parental consent. However, a survey published in 2022 by the nonprofit research organization Common Sense Media found an upswing in usage among children ages 8 to 12.

Its an interesting outlook for what the internet will look like in Florida but one that I can support.

I'm interested in hearing some thoughts on this so please share a comment!

[ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/25/ron-desantis-florida-social-media-ban-children/ ]

[Recon Ryan]

I honestly think that no child of 14 years of age should have any type of social media because of the problems we have today. I've seen plenty of children way younger have access to the media but still hate to see someone who has barely scratched puberty still online in a platform that's very toxic to all people.

I would only like to have someone under the age of 15 or 16 to be supervised on the media. People of 15 or 16 having independence. However, my point as my opinion.

[LITTLE LEVEL]

I mean even grown adults can be unsafe on the internet and will get exposed to terrible content all the time, but this defiantly is a step in the right direction.

[Recon Ryan]

Fair