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Ron DeSantis Signs Legislation Aimed to Protect Minors from ‘Danger’ of Social Media

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday signed laws geared toward addressing mounting issues over minors and the addictive affect social media has on them.

The laws, H.B. 3, outlines on-line safety for minors on social media platforms, requiring some to “prohibit certain minors from creating new accounts” and “requiring social media platforms to terminate certain accounts and provide additional options for termination of such accounts,” in accordance to a summary of the invoice.

The invoice additionally gives “conditions under which social media platforms are required to prohibit certain minors from entering into contracts to become account holders.” In different phrases, minors 14 and 15 will be unable to create accounts on the apps with out parental consent.

According to Florida’s Voice, “the bill requires adequate age verification measures for internet sites that contains [sic] obscene or ‘harmful’ content, unsuitable for minors.”

#BREAKING: Gov. Ron DeSantis is signing laws barring minors underneath 14 from “addictive” social media, requiring parental consent for 14 and 15-year-olds, and mandating grownup age verification for websites with “harmful” content material resembling pornography

— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceInformation) March 25, 2024

Briefly talking, DeSantis mentioned there’s a actual “danger” on social media for kids, pointing to the hazard of predators, who can simply goal youngsters on-line.

“Right now, with things like social media and all this, you can have a kid in the house, safe seemingly, and then you have predators … can get right in there, into your own home,” he defined.

“You could be doing everything right, but they know how to get and manipulate these different platforms. And so it’s created huge problems,” he continued earlier than introducing Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R).

Renner mentioned partly:

If you requested me a 12 months in the past, I’d have mentioned, you already know, youngsters are on social media an excessive amount of, however what’s the massive deal and I wouldn’t be one of these those that was actually on the sidelines. But understanding what I do know now, none of us can afford to be on the sidelines when it comes to social media, when it comes to hardcore pornography that our youngsters are being uncovered to. So what do we all know?

“We know from law enforcement we know from our prosecutors, that social media is the primary platform in which children are trafficked, in which pedophiles … pretending to be children, come after our children, and that more crimes against children happen on these platforms than any other venue. We know that,” he mentioned, additionally noting that social media is destroying the psychological well-being of youngsters.

Ultimately, Renner mentioned they largely centered on dependancy and “addictive features that are at the heart of why children stay on these platforms for hours and hours on end.”

“Our bill is focused on addiction, and when you think about it, children are not set up to handle the addiction that some of us as adults have had to face and step away from. … A child in their brain development doesn’t have the ability to know that they’re being sucked in to these addictive technologies, and to see the harm and step away from it,” he mentioned, explaining why they need to step in.

WATCH:

Governor Ron DeSantis Signs HB3 to Protect Children from the Harms of Social Media https://t.co/9nylhaOIXI

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 25, 2024

“If I said to you that a company was going to take children, use addiction that causes them harm for profit, what does that sound like? Sounds like trafficking to me,” Renner mentioned, describing this as “digital trafficking.”

“But you know what? We’re gonna beat them. We’re gonna beat them and we’re never ever gonna stop,” he added.

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