Meta agreed to comply with Florida’s age verification law, HB 3, and will begin purging accounts belonging to children under 14 starting in May.
The company’s capitulation comes ahead of an April 8 deadline set by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who threatened litigation against any platform still refusing to verify the ages and identities of its users. Uthmeier is now pressuring Snapchat, Roblox, Discord, and TikTok to do the same.
What Florida calls child protection is also the construction of a statewide identity verification system for the internet. Meta is one of the biggest companies lobbying for age verification checks on the app store level.
HB 3 bans under-14s from social media entirely and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. But to block minors, platforms first need to determine who is and isn’t a minor. That means age-checking everyone, adults included. The surveillance burden falls on millions of people who have every legal right to use these services without proving who they are.
Hellbound and Down 