Florida's Governor is again throwing cold water on a legislative proposal to ban youth social media use because he doesn't know if the "expansion beyond the current federal law" would hold up in court.
"I think that I'm not going to be supporting if I don't think it's going to be something that's going to pass legal muster in the courts," Ron DeSantis said in Cape Coral.
DeSantis reiterated previous sentiments about the controversial House bill (HB 1) banning anyone under the age of 16 from social media. The bill, a priority of House Speaker Paul Renner, was passed despite legal challenges in Utah and Ohio regarding similar bills.
"What I've said previously, these things have huge legal hurdles. They've been held up in courts. I don't want to go down the road of doing something that is not going to be going to pass muster legally," DeSantis said.
He voiced a seeming philosophical opposition to the bill forcing users to identify themselves, which was a talking point in his now-suspended presidential campaign.
"I don't want to have anything where government is forcing the disclosure of folks. But when you're talking about verifying ages, if you do that in a way that's ham-handed, you're going to lead to that," DeSantis said.
The Governor expressed similar concerns last month.
"There have been other states that have tried to do similar things that have met resistance in the courts," he said. "Not to say courts are always right about this, but anything I do, I want a pathway for this to actually stick."
The House has already passed the bill, as previously mentioned. Meanwhile, the Senate version from Republican Sen. Erin Grall (SB 1788) has one committee stop to go, but the Senate could take up the House product in messages before that hearing.
No comments:
Post a Comment