Scott Introduces SOCIAL MEDIA Act

Florida Senator Rick Scott (R) faces the likelihood of defending his senate seat in the upcoming election. However, the former Governor of Florida has also amassed a number of endorsements in recent weeks. With those endorsements comes support for Senator Scott introducing the SOCIAL MEDIA Act to combat online sales of drugs.

This week, Senator Scott introduced the Stopping Online Confusion for Investigative Agencies and Law Enforcement by Maintaining Evidence Determined Interparty Arrangements (SOCIAL MEDIA) Act.

The bill would combat the sale of fentanyl and other drugs through social media platforms. Moreover, the bill would provide better law enforcement coordination in criminal cases with social media platforms by calling for 24/7 staffed-in-the-U.S.A. call centers to intake fielding information requests with clear guidelines for agencies to best expedite the process.

The SOCIAL MEDIA act would also promote a number of things including enhanced data collection, transparency regarding the data collected, and a uniformity in the data presented to better compare different platforms and their efforts to address the sale of drugs.

In a statement, Senator Scott highlighted the dangerous climate that the sale of drugs has created, saying that “fentanyl and other deadly drugs are making their way to Floridians’ doorsteps, not only through the dark web and drug dealers on the streets, but now through social media apps that our kids have access to.”

He further shared that families have come forth to tell their stories of losing a child from an overdose after buying drugs over social media accounts, and the bill is an effort “to stop the drug dealers and social media platforms that are complicit in the death of hundreds of thousands of lives we have lost to overdose.”

The bill has been endorsed by the Major County Sheriffs of America, the Partnership for Safe Medicine, and the National Sheriffs’ Association, the latter of which shared a letter of support.