Florida is asking a state court to impose sweeping new restrictions on Instagram and Facebook, arguing that stronger safeguards are needed to protect children and teenagers from potentially harmful social-media use.
Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a request in Pasco County seeking a temporary injunction against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The proposed order would require Meta to identify and remove users under 14 from the platforms in Florida while imposing stricter controls on older teenagers.
Under the proposal, users aged 14 to 17 would face a combined daily limit of two hours across Meta’s apps. Florida also wants Meta to disable features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling for teenagers, which the state argues can encourage prolonged and compulsive use.
The state is further seeking a ban on targeted advertising to teenagers. Teen users would also lose access to direct messaging after reaching their daily usage limit, according to the court filing. Florida wants the measures to take effect while its broader lawsuit against Meta continues.
Florida’s lawsuit accuses Meta of deliberately designing its platforms in ways that encourage young people to spend excessive amounts of time on them. The state also alleges that the company misled consumers about the safety of its services.
Meta has rejected Florida’s approach. The company argues that the state should instead push other major platforms, including YouTube and TikTok, to adopt similar protections. Meta has said its existing agreement with state attorneys general already establishes stronger safeguards for teenagers and that industry-wide adoption would make those measures more effective.
The Florida case comes after Meta reached a major settlement in August with attorneys general representing most U.S. states and territories. The agreement calls for Meta to introduce a range of protections, including a combined two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook, nighttime restrictions, school-hour notification limits, stronger age verification and controls over algorithmic feeds and autoplay.
The settlement is valued at up to about $17.1 billion, although the final amount depends partly on whether other major social-media companies adopt comparable measures. Meta has not admitted wrongdoing as part of the agreement.
Florida declined to join that settlement. Uthmeier has argued that the penalties and reforms agreed elsewhere do not go far enough to deter Meta from practices that the state considers harmful to children.
Florida’s proposed restrictions would go beyond several elements of the multistate agreement, particularly by seeking to remove users under 14 altogether, prohibit advertising aimed at teenagers and cut off messaging once a teenager reaches the daily usage limit.
The state says Meta’s willingness to implement substantial safety changes under the multistate settlement demonstrates that stronger protections are technically possible. The court will now consider whether to impose the temporary measures while the underlying lawsuit proceeds.
