A federal appeals court has ruled that Florida’s law restricting minors’ access to social media is likely constitutional, reversing a preliminary injunction that technology industry groups had won against it. The decision allows the state to keep enforcing the law while the challenge continues in district court.
The law, HB 3, requires covered platforms to prohibit children under 14 from creating accounts and to obtain parental consent before 14- and 15-year-olds can open them. It applies to platforms that use algorithms and “addictive features” such as like counts and infinite scrolling, and that a portion of children use for more than two hours a day.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued the 59-page opinion on October 14 in Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Uthmeier. Judge Kevin Newsom wrote the opinion, joined by Judges Robert Luck and Gerald Tjoflat.
The court agreed that HB 3 implicates the First Amendment because it burdens platforms’ ability to communicate with their users. “But it likely does so in a content-neutral manner, and it likely survives intermediate scrutiny because it doesn’t burden substantially more speech than necessary to advance the important interest in protecting minors from social-media addiction,” Newsom wrote.
Rather than an outright prohibition of platform use, the panel described the law as a “‘conditional ban’ of sorts” on “platforms’ use of addictive features and algorithms.” It also noted that HB 3 imposes no limits on users aged 16 and older.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, whose members include Meta, Snap and Google, sued after the law passed in 2024. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida granted a preliminary injunction, which a divided Eleventh Circuit panel lifted in November before hearing the appeal on an expedited basis.
Courts have reached different results on similar measures. A federal judge in 2025 permanently blocked Arkansas’s social media age verification law, finding that it violated the First Amendment and was unconstitutionally vague.
CCIA President Matt Schruers said the ruling “risks altering First Amendment protections against government interference in online speech for users young and old alike.” He added that “the decision risks imposing identity authentication on Floridian internet users of all ages.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has separately sued Snap, TikTok and Meta in state court, and last year brought a case against Roblox over insufficient age verification controls.
Sources: Courthouse News, Reason
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
