Fla. Senate Panel Merges Then Approves Online Age-Verification Bills

A Florida Senate committee combined House bills requiring age verification for those accessing social media (HB-1) and pornography (HB-3). At a Thursday hearing, the Fiscal Policy Committee on a voice vote approved an amendment that inserts the text of HB-3 into HB-1 and makes other changes. Then the panel cleared the amended bill. The Senate could vote on the bill Wednesday. Opposing the bill in committee, Sen. Geri Thompson (D) said legislators’ role is education, not censorship. Sen. Shev Johnson (D) said it’s not lawmakers’ role to parent the parents, and the bill doesn’t pass legal muster. Added Sen. Lori Berman (D), HB-1 has many practical problems, including that it would force adults to verify their age on many websites and its breadth could bar children from accessing educational sites. Yet Sen. Erin Grall (R), who is shepherding HB-1 in the Senate, said Florida isn’t suggesting it knows better than parents. The state is narrowly responding to an identified harm, she said. "This is a bill about not targeting our children in order to manipulate them." The new version of HB-1 continues to propose prohibiting children younger than 16 from having social media accounts regardless of parental consent but no longer would require social websites to disclose social media's possible mental health problems to those 16-18. The amended bill allows enforcement by the attorney general and through a private right of action. Other changes to bill definitions could mean that young people will also be banned from Amazon, LinkedIn and news websites, said Maxx Fenning, executive director of PRISM, an LGBTQ rights group in Florida. In addition, the American Civil Liberties Union opposed the bill. Banning kids younger than 16 even with their parents' consent "shows that the claim of parental rights of the last two legislative sessions had nothing to do with parental rights and everything to do with government censorship of viewpoints and information that government doesn't like,” ACLU-Florida Legislative Director Kara Gross said.