Attorney General James Uthmeier asked a Pasco County judge Wednesday for stricter child safety rules on Instagram and Facebook while the state’s lawsuit against Meta moves forward.
His motion for a temporary injunction asks the court to compel short-term changes – including removing users under 14, capping teens at two hours a day across its apps, and disabling autoplay, infinite scroll and late-night notifications.
Florida was one of the handful of states that did not join the landmark settlement against Meta, which includes daily time limits for teens, nighttime and school-hour blocks, and new parental controls. The state AGs who negotiated the settlement with Meta tied roughly 30% of the payout to YouTube and TikTok adopting similar protections for kids on their platforms.
Uthmeier ultimately turned down Florida joining the settlement, promising to continue his ongoing lawsuit against Meta, which has not yet gone to trial.
Uthmeier’s doubling down comes as parents and youth advocates call on the entire tech industry – including YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat – to step up their safety commitments.
Jessie Thompson, a Volusia County School Board member, applauded AG Uthmeier’s efforts to keep Florida kids safe online, and urged him to demand greater protections from every social media platform.
“I applaud the efforts the AG is taking to protect children in Florida, but this injunction is still only a partial victory for empowering parents and protecting Florida kids online until it also applies to YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat in addition to Meta,” Thompson said. “We can’t selectively enact safety precautions or else kids will simply seek platforms without these protections,” and, “Our kids and society are worth defending,” she concluded.
According to Pew Research Center, YouTube is the most-used platform among teens (92%), followed by TikTok (68%), and almost 1 in 5 say they use YouTube “almost constantly.”
YouTube’s own employees have flagged the risks. According to internal documents cited in federal litigation, the company recognized that short-form video can trigger an “addiction cycle” but built YouTube Shorts anyway, which operates similarly to TikTok and Instagram Reels.
A New York Times investigation into YouTube found that after children watched preschool shows like Cocomelon, 40% of the videos YouTube recommended next contained AI-generated content.A coalition of child safety advocates has since encouraged Google to take action to protect children on its platforms, claiming the current AI policies are “potentially harming millions of developing children.”
Over the summer, Uthmeier criticized YouTube for failing to comply with safety measures, saying YouTube needed to “wake up” on protecting Florida kids.
Weeks after Meta’s settlement, however, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said the company has invested in teen safety for years and has no plans to join Meta in strengthening protections for kids who use YouTube.
TikTok has not publicly responded to calls to join either, and it pulled Meta ads urging it to offer similar projections for children on their platforms.
Earlier this year, Meta became the first company to commit to complying with HB 3, Florida’s law barring social media accounts for children under 14. Others have been slow to comply, and in TikTok’s case, AG Uthmeier has taken them to court.
"I can confirm we heard from Meta, and they have announced they will be complying with our law effective in early May," Uthmeier told Fox & Friends.
Uthmeier called on companies like Snapchat, Roblox, Discord, and TikTok to follow Meta's lead. "They know that kids are suffering on these applications,” Uthmeier said. “So, we're encouraging companies, 'Come in, sit down. Let's work together. Let's protect our kids at all costs.’”
In June, Uthmeier sued TikTok in St. Lucie County, alleging the company lets children under 14 open accounts and lets 15- and 16-year-olds sign up without parental consent. The complaint also accuses TikTok of exposing teens to sexual content and drug references while downplaying that material to parents. According to court filings, TikTok’s own internal research acknowledged that “minors do not have executive mental function to control their screen time.”
“TikTok’s success hinges on its ability to addict children and teenagers to the platform,” Uthmeier said at the time. “We repeatedly warned social media companies that the time to implement the protections required under HB3 was coming to an end. Well, time’s up.”
The fight lands less than four weeks before Uthmeier faces Democrat José Javier Rodríguez on Nov. 3 for a full four-year term.
With nearly every other state settled, Florida’s case is the one parents, platforms, and the state legislature is watching closely as it decides how to better protect Florida’s children from online harms during the 2027 legislative session.
