(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Restrictions on social media, online porn, clear FL House by heavy margins [1] ['Michael Moline', 'More From Author', '- January'] Date: 2024-01-24 The Florida House voted Wednesday to forbid access to social media to children under age 16 and followed up by requiring pornographic internet sites to use third parties to verify their users’ ages. The vote on the social media measure — a priority of House Speaker Paul Renner — was overwhelming and bipartisan: 106-13 in the 120-member House. The porn bill passed unanimously. HB 1 forbids social media platforms for allowing people under 16 to join, based on “reasonable age verification methods” by “any commercially reasonable method regularly used by government agencies or businesses for the purpose of age and identity verification.” If the platform is unable to verify a person’s age, it must deny access. Platforms must terminate accounts of people “reasonably known” to be under 16 and allow those users or their parents to terminate their own accounts and delete any personal information it holds. More details here. Similar legislation is pending in the Senate, which hasn’t acted on any of them yet. Supporters of HB 1 argued that social media open children to bullying, sex abuse, depression, and self-harm blaming algorithms designed to boost engagement and keep kids clicking. The bill would restrict the ability of platforms’ “predatory practices” to “influence the emotional character of children,” said Republican Ralph Massullo, representing Citrus and part of Marion counties. Bill sponsor Tyler Sirois of Brevard County noted that two industries refer to customers as “users” — “software and illicit drugs.” Platforms “intentionally deploy features that are addictive,” Sirois said, and “take advantage of kids growing up.” Michele Rayner, a Democrat representing parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, described being subjected to abuse targeting her mother after mentioning her in debate on Tuesday. “Imagine what our babies have to deal with when they have their friends in school going through the same cyberbullying,” said Rayner, a civil-rights attorney. But Broward County Democrat Michael Gottlieb, a criminal defense attorney, argued the bill would remove minors’ access to social forums where they could find advice and support to overcome personal problems. Porn HB 3 would require platforms that allow people under 18 access to “material harmful to minors,” defined as appealing to “prurient interest” as established by “contemporary community standards,” to apply a “reasonable age verification method” conducted “by a nongovernmental, independent, third-party not affiliated with the commercial entity.” This would include “patently offensive” sexual material that “when taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” It contains penalties equivalent to those in the social media bill. Sponsors argued porn is twisting kids’ views and expectations of sex — and that there’s no way to restore it “once the innocence of a child is taken from them,” as Republicans Chase Tramont of Brevard and Volusia counties put it. “Just let kids be kids,” added Republican Toby Overdorf of Martin and St. Lucie counties. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/01/24/restrictions-on-social-media-online-porn-clear-fl-house-by-heavy-margins/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/