Some short excerpts from the long opinion in Computer & Comm. Indus. Ass'n v. Uthmeier, decided today by Judge Kevin Newsom, joined by Judges Robert Luck and Gerald Bard Tjoflat:
One of the most pressing is how and in what ways social-media use affects minors. According to the State of Florida, social-media companies seed their platforms with "addictive features"—push notifications, auto-play, infinite scrolling, etc.—in order to make them, well, addictive. These features, the state says, are "psychological hooks" that "overstimulate the reward center in the brain" and "foster compulsive overuse." Florida insists that children are particularly susceptible to these "addictive features" because their brains are still developing. In particular, the state contends, the features contribute to "[c]ompulsive or uncontrollable" social-media use among children and threaten a "youth mental health crisis." Children face "'sleep problems, attention problems, and feelings of exclusion,' all of which put [them] at risk of 'depression, anxiety, and neuroticism.'"
In an effort to protect children from social-media addiction and its ensuing effects, Florida passed HB3, which imposes age-restriction requirements on platforms that use "addictive features." In particular, HB3 requires platforms within its ambit to prohibit anyone under the age of 14 from creating an account, and to prohibit anyone else under 16 from doing so without parental consent….
[W]e hold that HB3 likely passes First Amendment muster because it is a content-neutral speech regulation that satisfies intermediate scrutiny….
The court held that HB3 was a speech restriction and thus implicated the First Amendment:
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