“Unlikely to succeed”: Big tech beats Florida in court, another state law crushed by federal judge
Florida – A federal judge has stopped Florida from making Snapchat check the ages of its users, which is another setback for the state’s efforts to regulate social media. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker made the decision in favor of Snap Inc. and said that Florida’s attorney general could not use the state’s HB 3 law against the corporation.
Florida enacted HB 3 to control social media sites and apps, focusing on features like limitless scrolling, autoplay videos, and push notifications, which they said were harmful for young people. The state said that Snap lied to parents about how safe it was and tried to make the corporation follow the law. But Judge Walker said that Florida’s case was “unlikely to succeed,” going back to his June order that had previously banned many parts of HB 3 on constitutional grounds.
Walker said in that earlier decision that the law probably broke the First Amendment, which says that states can’t restrict free expression unless they can show that doing so is required to protect a compelling interest. He said that Florida hadn’t reached the high legal threshold needed to justify its limits, even though he understood the concerns about the risks social media poses to young people.
Some parts of HB 3 were not thrown out. Platforms still have to follow parents’ requests to deactivate accounts of youngsters who are under 16. But current measures don’t allow for the broader measures, such mandatory age checks and bans on social media design aspects, to be enforced.
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Walker also turned down Florida’s request to have the lawsuit heard in state court this time. He said that Snap has worked with the federal government to send public service announcements to teens through its platform. These announcements include auto-play videos that can’t be skipped. He thought that limiting Snap’s activities in Florida would make it harder for the company to follow federal orders.
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has already filed an appeal with the Eleventh Circuit. This is part of the state’s aggressive campaign to enforce HB 3. His office has also gone after adult websites, suing corporations who didn’t put in place anonymous age verification. Instead of following the legislation, Pornhub, the biggest porn site in the world, cut off access to Florida users completely on January 1, 2025.
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The case shows how lawmakers want to keep kids safe online, but the Constitution protects digital platforms. As other states think about doing the same thing, courts across the country are asking the same question: how far can the government control social media without violating free speech rights? Judge Walker’s decision makes it clear that, at least for now, those constitutional obstacles are still in place.
