11th Circuit Lifts Block of Florida Social Media Kids Ban

The U.S. District Court for Northern Florida halted HB-3 in June on First Amendment grounds (see 2506030057). The state appealed that ruling (see 2506040047).

The 2024 Florida law prohibits kids 13 and younger from creating social media accounts and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create them. Challenger NetChoice had argued that the law violates the First Amendment and creates cybersecurity and privacy risks for state residents (see 2503310040).

Despite allowing the law to stand, the appeals court said it agreed with some of the district court’s conclusions, including that NetChoice “made a clear showing” to establish standing to bring the challenge.

NetChoice is “disappointed” by the ruling and “will consider all available options to ensure Floridians’ online communication is safe and free,” said Paul Taske, co-director of the Litigation Center, in a release Tuesday. “We look forward to the opportunity to explain the law’s constitutional problems to the Court directly.” Florida’s "censorship regime not only violates its citizens’ free speech rights but also makes all users -- especially minors -- less safe,” he added.

While the 11th Circuit agreed with the district court that HB-3 "likely implicates the First Amendment by singling out protected expressive activities,” and that the law is “likely content neutral,” the panel of judges concluded that the Florida law's “limited restrictions likely satisfy the intermediate scrutiny test for content-neutral regulations, so the Attorney General has made a strong showing he is likely to succeed on the merits,” said Judge Elizabeth Branch in the majority opinion for case 25-11881.

“The State has a compelling interest in protecting minors in general,” and particularly the potentially addictive features on social media, the opinion said. Instead of “blocking children from accessing social media altogether, HB3 simply prevents them from creating accounts on platforms that employ addictive features,” which means it “does not apply at all to older minors and tailors its provisions to the ages of the young minors whose access it does restrict.”

Given this, “the district court erred in determining that HB3 failed tailoring,” Branch added. Judge Barbara Lagoa also signed on to the opinion.

Rosenbaum, however, dissented from the decision, calling HB-3 "plainly unconstitutional on its face."

"Florida wouldn’t suffer irreparable harm" through a block of the law, she said, as "governments don’t suffer harm from the inability to enforce unconstitutional laws." However, NetChoice and its members "will suffer substantial harm" if the current injunction is stayed. Lifting the injunction also "doesn’t serve the public interest," she added.

Because of the age-verification requirements, "users lose the ability to hold accounts anonymously and engage freely in these sensitive discussions," and "it’s unclear whether Florida has any limits ... on with whom it may share information" with outside of the platform, Rosenbaum said.

The law is a "direct regulation on speech" because it "inserts the state of Florida into users’ decisions about whether and how to speak online" and "interferes with the platforms’ editorial choices about which users can join the platform and about what content to display to those users."

Rosenbaum additionally said that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is different because it deals with obscenity (see 2506270041). Moreover, she said "less restrictive alternatives exist" to protect children on social media.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) didn't comment Wednesday.