Two bills that would restrict minors from using social media have cleared another hurdle in the Florida legislature

TALAHASSEE, Fla. – The Senate Committee for Judiciary unanimously passed SB 1792 9-0 on Monday.

SB 1792, titled “Online Access to Materials Harmful to Minors,” would require commercial entities that publish or distribute material to minors to add age verification methods and methods for reporting unauthorized or unlawful access.

The committee also favored SB 1788 7-2 on Monday.

SB 1788, which is titled “Age Verification for Social Media Platform Accounts”, would require social media platforms to prohibit certain minors from creating new accounts and use reasonable age-verification methods to verify the ages of account holders.

Two similar bills were passed in the Florida House late last month.

HB 1 would restrict teenagers under the age of 16 from creating social media accounts and provide options for termination of their existing accounts.

HB 3 also passed 119-0 last month. It is considered a compliment to HB1 because it would limit online access to material deemed harmful to minors and would require commercial entities that publish or distribute materials to perform age verifications to prevent access.

If any of these social media bills become law, they would go into effect on July 1.