Why Florida's new social media rules for kids may not last

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that bans children under the age of 14 from having social media accounts, while children who are 14 and 15 must have parental approval before opening a social media account. However, as Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman explains in the video above, similar laws have been successfully challenged in court.

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Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich.

Video Transcript

MADISON MILLS: Well, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed legislation restricting social media access for kids. On Monday, DeSantis signed HB3 that prohibits children in Florida under the age of 14 from becoming social media account holders.

The legislation, however, does allow 14- and 15-year-olds to get an account with parental consent. This comes with heightened scrutiny in Washington over the impact of social media on children. Here with more is "Yahoo Finance's" Rick Newman.

Rick, what do we need to know about what's going on down in Florida?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, on that visual we saw some kids standing around DeSantis. They can't be real happy about this. And I think a lot of this is going to get challenged in court.

There have been other efforts to do this to, in some way, restrict access to social media accounts by kids. Also, to ban TikTok. The courts keep saying, no, you can't really do that. So that's probably what's going to happen here.

So just to review what this law would do in Florida, if you're under-- if you're 13 or under, you cannot have access to any social media accounts. And if you're 14 or 15, you have to get parental permission.

We know all the problems enforcing these kinds of rules, kids, whether they're 9 or 10 or 11, they quickly become smart enough. They put in fake ages. Or they find other ways around, which will probably continue.

So I think what this law is intended to do is a couple of things. First, put the burden on the companies to make sure that the kids are not getting access. But let's keep in mind, Ron DeSantis is no longer a presidential candidate. But he probably will be again.

And I guess he thinks that continuing on as a social warrior is his pathway to a brighter political future. So this is the new version of Ron DeSantis, culture warrior, social warrior. And I guess this is where he thinks his future is.

So this is probably going to get overturned. But this is more of DeSantis making his mark than I think any effect it's going to have on social media.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah. Rick, that's exactly what I wanted to talk about. It's almost like why the point of this in terms of-- because he did receive backlash when he's done something similar in terms of his attacks on Disney over the last several years. There was a backlash there.

But when it comes to going forward, some of the legal challenges that you were talking about, walk us through if we know about any timeline of this. And what exactly they could be potentially facing when it comes to some of those First Amendment issues.

RICK NEWMAN: Well, the social media industry-- it's not like they're getting caught by surprise by any of this. They have lawyered up. They have lobbyists up. And they have marshaled a lot of resources. They've formed lobbying groups in Washington, DC.

They've created alliances. So that all of the big firms are represented by trade groups rather than having to go after these one at a time. They're going to throw everything they can at getting this overturned.

There's a similar case. It's a bit different. But Montana tried to ban the TikTok app in the state. And that is in court. And a judge said, no, we're not going to-- that can't happen. So it's going to go all the way up through the appeals process in Montana.

I think there are other statutes states are trying to pass. The problem is real with kids getting addicted to apps. That definitely is a problem in the stuff they see on there. And they don't want to read books. They don't want to go outside and play, run around in the woods, or play on playgrounds, and stuff like that.

All legitimate problems. But passing laws to solve the problems is just very difficult, because these are companies that have the right to promote their products. And they're not always the ones who say whether the kids are going to get access to these products.

So everybody finds a workaround. The kids will find a workaround. And the well-moneyed technology companies are going to probably have a good shot at winning challenges to this law.

SEANA SMITH: All right. Rick, always great to talk to you and have you on here. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.