The state of Florida has passed a major new law that limits social media use for children, banning popular apps for anyone under the age of 14. But can this law stand up in court? Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The state of Florida has passed a major new law that limits social media use for children banning popular apps for anyone under the age of 14. But can this law stand up in court? Okay. So here’s what you hear in response to this. It makes, again, I gotta look at it from a constitutional standpoint. They’re saying, oh, this Wasserman, they interviewed some guy named Wasserman about the First Amendment. Yeah. It’s a First Amendment issue. But you begin every analysis by saying, is there a standard where the First Amendment issue can be trumped? Where you can say, yeah, First Amendment’s important, but health, safety and welfare concerns are more important than that. And so for this, to say that this is simply gonna be analyzed from a First Amendment standpoint is absurd. It’s a ridiculous thing for this guy to say. Pick it up from there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. So what we’ve got in the state of Florida, bipartisan legislation, Democrats and Republicans passed this legislation saying, if you’re under the age of 14, social media apps are off limits. 14 and 15 years old, you do it with parents’ consent, 16 and up, no problem there. So that’s the law and it goes into effect January 1st, 2025. And the critics of the law, which in spirit, I like what the law’s doing because I think it’s necessary. But the critics of it are, like you said, they’re saying, no, it’s a First Amendment issue. But at least, to the only time I’ll probably ever credit the government here in Florida, they’re saying, no, listen, we have a duty to protect, like you say, with the police powers.
Mike Papantonio: Health, safety and welfare, police powers. Right.
Farron Cousins: And we have reports off the charts of children being harmed by these social media apps. You and I have sat here and talked about some of the horrific things happen.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, dozens of stories.
Farron Cousins: So that’s why, listen, I don’t think this is a violation of First Amendment rights when you consider the police powers, and I think they may be going after the wrong group. It’s not the kids. They really should be going after the social media companies themselves. But if we can’t get that at this point, maybe this is the route to go.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I thought the reporter did a terrible job on this story. He focused on one professor, Wasserman, and Wasserman tells the New Times, well, this is all a First amendment. Well, it’s not. Okay. It’s not. Otherwise, how would you even control pornographic material? How would you control voting? How would you control driver’s license? How would you control alcohol or cigarettes? There’s some things that fall squarely within health, safety and welfare. And they fall under something called strict scrutiny. Okay. First Amendment is what you would regard as, when an appellate court looks at it, they look at it with strict scrutiny. The assumption is that this violates the First Amendment. You start there, but you say, wait, is there something that overpowers that? And of course, we wouldn’t have any of these laws. We wouldn’t have cigarettes. We wouldn’t have voting. We wouldn’t have alcohol where we’re driven by age. We’d have none of this. If all you said, or driving, you’d have none of it if you just said, okay, well, let’s look at the First Amendment aspect of something like pornography, or let’s look at the First Amendment of, you can virtually say that anything, you have some First Amendment in your expression, your desire to do something. But it’s just a wrong analysis. I don’t know. I think that this was defeated in Arkansas, wasn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And Utah’s got one that’s currently going through the courts. But again, they’re staying to the strict First Amendment, yes or no questions. They’re not trying to make the good argument, which is, we have seen the data, we have victims that we could call to come and testify here if you want us to. We have to keep these children safe. And again, the better way to keep them safe is to crack down on the perpetrators and on the social media networks themselves. They’re the ones allowing this to happen. But they have all the power, and we’re not gonna hold them accountable.
Mike Papantonio: It’s just, what bothers me is every knucklehead who thinks that there’s a constitutional protection to anything always being First Amendment, you know, that. And it’s just not true. There’s always a balancing act between what we call a strict scrutiny issue. Might be gender, might be First Amendment, free speech. So all of these, or race, those are when a court gets that, they say, okay, we have to look at this with a presumption that this is going to be a problem from a constitutional. But this Wasserman, it was like a 10th grade analysis. And this article doesn’t even look at the other side and really explore the other side.
Farron Cousins: You know, it is interesting you bring that up, because I think a lot of people think the First Amendment is absolute, steadfast.
Mike Papantonio: All the time. Yeah.
Farron Cousins:: Just total. When I was doing pre-law, I had to take a course for a whole semester, First Amendment freedoms. And the entire course, every, three days a week was only about all of the exceptions
Mike Papantonio: Exactly.
Farron Cousins: To the First Amendment. And that was just one course on that. So.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. So they always, if you notice in these articles, they always call some professor who hasn’t really practiced law at all. They teach some law school, willing to say, well, what about First Amendment? It’s just like that knee jerk reaction This is a case that, I don’t know, man. I think the analysis is a tough call.
Farron Cousins: Ring of Fire founder and host of America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio has a new book came out this week called, “Suspicious Activity.” Like his other books before it, this book actually deals with real legal cases that Mike Papantonio has handled, but in a fictionalized way. The book follows the character of Nick Deketomis that Papantonio first introduced in his book, “Law and Disorder,” and it carries on the story that began in “Law and Disorder” through “Law and Vengeance,” “Law and Addiction,” “Inhuman Trafficking,” and now “Suspicious Activity.” This book, in particular, deals with the financial institutions that have helped launder money for terrorist organizations, which of course is a topic we have covered extensively here on Ring of Fire. So if you’re a follower of Mike Papantonio’s books, or if this is your first one, you can get your copy of “Suspicious Activity” now. Just go to MikePapantonio.com and place your order. And if you haven’t already, check out Mike’s other books, also available on MikePapantonio.com.
