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One of America's strictest children's internet laws is back in force. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court ruled that Florida can enforce its 2024 law barring children under 14 from holding social media accounts, rejecting the tech industry's argument that the law violates the First Amendment. In a unanimous 3-0 ruling, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court's injunction that had blocked the law — clearing the way for Florida to start policing kids' accounts while the legal fight continues.
What the law actually does
Known as House Bill 3, the law — signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in March 2024 — targets platforms that combine algorithms with what lawmakers call addictive features: infinite scroll, autoplay videos, push notifications, livestreaming and displays of user reactions. Platforms meeting that definition may not let children under 14 create accounts at all, and 14- and 15-year-olds need parental consent. Tech trade groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association — whose members include Meta, TikTok, Google and Snap — sued in 2024, arguing the law restricts young people's access to lawful speech. But the appeals court disagreed on the key point: writing for the panel, Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom said the law regulates platform features and account access, not the topics or viewpoints expressed online — noting, pointedly, that "Truth Social is just as likely as Instagram to be affected by HB 3." That content-neutral framing let the court apply intermediate scrutiny, a legal test that gives the government far more room than the strict scrutiny used when a law targets speech itself.
Why this ruling matters nationally
This is not just a Florida story. Dozens of states are racing to regulate children's access to social media, and courts have repeatedly knocked those laws down on First Amendment grounds — which is what makes the 11th Circuit's 47-page opinion significant. It concluded that protecting minors from social media addiction and related harms is an important enough state interest to justify burdening some speech, and that the law "doesn't burden substantially more speech than necessary" toward that goal. The ruling also doesn't mean a full ban for all under-16s, and the lawsuit now returns to federal court in Tallahassee for a full trial — so this is a preliminary enforcement win, not a final verdict. But it hands every state writing copycat legislation a judicial roadmap, and the tech industry a warning: designing for addiction is now a legal liability strategy, not just a growth strategy. For the broader fight over AI and child safety, see our coverage of eight states suing OpenAI over ChatGPT harming children and why patients don't trust AI medical advice.