Florida Asks Judge to Remove Under-14 Users Off Meta Apps
The Facts
- Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked a Pasco County judge Wednesday to order Meta to identify and remove Instagram and Facebook users under 14 in the state, cap teen use at two hours daily and disable autoplay and infinite scroll.
- A Meta spokesperson said Florida should instead press YouTube and TikTok to adopt these measures, and described the state's request as a "meritless preliminary injunction years into the litigation." Meta says it works to keep teens safe on its platforms.
- The filing cites internal Meta chat logs in which employees wrote "IG is a drug," referring to Instagram, and that staff were "basically pushers." Florida also says the company left a backlog of 700,000 suspected underage accounts unaddressed.
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The Spin
Pro-industry narrative
Florida wants a court to force Meta to find and remove every user under 14 and cap teens at two hours a day. That means checking the age of everyone in the state, adults included, and handing Meta more sensitive data to lose in a breach. A federal judge found Florida’s own youth social media law likely unconstitutional, since minors have First Amendment rights too. Parent controls are the better fix.
Industry-critical narrative
Design features engineered for compulsive scrolling hooked kids, and internal messages show the harm was known. A backlog of 700,000 suspected underage accounts went unaddressed. A payout worth a few weeks of revenue is a cost of doing business. Children under 14 have no place on apps built this way, and Florida's kids should not be last in line.
