Florida's new social media law: How will it be enforced?

Come January 1, 2025, everyone younger than 14 in Florida will essentially be kicked off social media under a new law Governor Ron DeSantis signed Monday, but there are still many unanswered questions, like how will companies verify someone's age remotely? And how will law enforcement know if social sites are kicking off everyone in Florida under 14?

"This is going to be a challenge. There's already been signals from people who oppose this bill that they were going to challenge the constitutionality of the bill under the First Amendment and other potential grounds of privacy issues so it remains to be seen how this bill will play out," attorney Anthony Rickman said.

Conducting a remote age verification process could be one of the biggest hurdles for the tech giants. Each site's age verification process as it's related to the new law remains to be seen, but Facebook's current age verification process may give a peek at what it could look like.

BACKSTORY: Gov. DeSantis signs bill preventing kids under 14 from having social media accounts

According to Facebook, a user can verify their age by uploading a photo of their ID, or by taking a selfie video which is then sent to a third-party company called Yoti, which uses artificial intelligence to determine how old someone is by looking at facial features. The system is trained using images of people from all over the world of different ages.

According to Yoti, in studies the system was 96.99% accurate at estimating 6 to 11-year-olds as under 13.

"These social media platforms are now liable for between $10,000 and $50,000 per violation if a child is on that website and the parental consent is inaccurate or if it's a 13-year-old or someone under the age of 13 who is still on that website," Rickman said.

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As Rickman explains, under the new law no parent or child is legally responsible, putting the sole burden on companies to follow the law.

"This governor, this attorney general has made it clear that they believe social media is a crux of a lot of the problems we have in regards to human trafficking, child exploitation, pornography and they are taking a drastic step to stop it," Rickman said.

According to a 2022 survey from Stastica.com, nationwide about 68 percent of 11 to 12-year-olds had social media accounts. It's not clear how many Florida kids under 14 are currently on social media, but it's likely in the hundreds of thousands.

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