Florida Asks Court to Force Meta to Change Facebook, Instagram for Teens
- A Meta spokesperson stated that the attorney general should be using taxpayer resources to get YouTube and TikTok to empower parents and protect teens in Florida.
- Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked a state judge on October 7 to order immediate changes to Instagram and Facebook to protect young users.
- The state's preliminary injunction asks the court to force Meta to identify and remove users in Florida under the age of 14 from Facebook and Instagram.
A Meta spokesperson stated that the attorney general should be using taxpayer resources to get YouTube and TikTok to empower parents and protect teens in Florida. We regret that he has chosen instead to pursue a meritless preliminary injunction years into the litigation, a Meta spokesperson said in a statement reported by Reuters on October 7.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier asked a state judge on October 7 to order immediate changes to Instagram and Facebook to protect young users. The legal filing in a Pasco County court presses ahead with a lawsuit accusing parent company Meta Platforms of harming teens, even though 48 other states and Washington, D.C., resolved similar claims through a sweeping settlement in August.
Florida Seeks Immediate Platform Restrictions
The state’s preliminary injunction asks the court to force Meta to identify and remove users in Florida under the age of 14 from Facebook and Instagram. It also seeks to cap teen usage at two hours per day across all apps while turning off features like autoplay and infinite scroll. Uthmeier’s office argued that these changes should remain in place while the underlying lawsuit moves forward.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of knowingly engineering addictive platforms for young users and misleading consumers about safety. Florida chose not to join the August multistate settlement, which involved payments of up to $18 billion and platform adjustments. In the filing, Florida officials characterized that agreement as a mere slap on the wrist that will not prevent future harmful behavior.
Stricter Teen Rules Compared to Multistate Settlement
The restrictions requested by Florida go further than the measures Meta agreed to in the prior 48-state settlement. Uthmeier’s filing would cut off messaging access for teens once they hit their daily time limits and completely bar Meta from showing advertisements to those users. Florida argued that the changes Meta accepted in the multistate deal prove these stricter technical adjustments are entirely possible to implement.
Meta countered that Florida should direct its attention toward other major social media competitors instead of pursuing old litigation. The company maintained that it works diligently to keep teens safe on its services and denied any wrongdoing when it agreed to settle with the other states. That prior settlement payout represents roughly three to four months of profit and about one month of revenue for Meta.
The settlement amounted to a “mere slap on the wrist, will be cynically viewed as the cost of doing business, and in any event will not prevent this kind of behavior going forward.”
Florida Attorney General’s Office
The Pasco County court has not yet ruled on the request for a preliminary injunction. The litigation continues as the state pushes for immediate enforcement of the stricter safety mandates.