On Monday, Florida GOP Governor DeSantis signed legislation to get minors off of social media.
Politico reported on the legislation yesterday, saying:
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday aimed at kicking minors off social media, putting the final stamp on a top Florida Republican priority that is widely expected to face legal challenges from the tech industry.
Under the new law, many platforms are prohibited from allowing children younger than 14 to have an account. State leaders contend that accessing social media is harmful to their development and mental health.
This is correct. It is. Social media has harmed children, has harmed minors. It has made them less likely to engage in the kinds of activities that make childhood awesome, like going outside, touching grass, actually having and hanging out with friends, studying, and doing homework. Screens suck children in, and social media is the worst form of screens.
It’s not even like a video game; social media is about perverting your child’s mind and sucking them into a world where people do not have their best interests at heart, where they are constantly being told to live up to standards that are not realistic and not real, or where they’re being told they have friends they don’t actually have. That’s what social media does to your kids.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor at New York University, has an excellent book about this — about how social media has destroyed an entire generation of people. It is going to do the same to the next generation unless kids don’t get on social media.
That’s one of the reasons I have zero plans to give my kids independent Internet access until they hit their late teens at the absolute earliest.
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Politico continues, reporting, “The measure, which also targets adult websites, aligns Florida with other states like Arkansas and Utah that have attempted to rein in social media use, drawing the ire of the tech companies and free speech advocates.”
There are no free speech rights in the United States for minors. Minors’ free speech rights are relatively limited because they are minors.
They do not have the capacity to consent to activity that would normally fall under the preservation of free speech for adults. That is particularly true when discussing topics such as pornography or social media intervention.
DeSantis said, “It used to be, ‘Well, if they’re out somewhere, maybe they’re not supervised, maybe some predator can strike.’ Now, with things like social media and all this, 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.”
Politico noted:
Florida’s legislation, FL HB3 (24R), represents a compromise between DeSantis and lawmakers, led by House Speaker Paul Renner, who initially proposed enacting the strictest social media prohibitions in the country.
The original bill, vetoed by DeSantis earlier this month, would have blocked all minors younger than 16 from many social media platforms. The law DeSantis ultimately signed Monday gives parents the power to grant 14- and 15-year-olds consent to use the applications.
This is how it works in the state of Florida. We would like to see the government protect our children.
And that is a very, very good thing.