TALLAHASSEE — After Florida’s attorney general refused to accept millions from Meta in a multi-state settlement he criticized as borderline “absurd,” he now is asking a state court to force the social media giant to make the same — and more — concessions to Florida that it did to the 52 other states and territories it settled with.
In an 85-page filing in Pasco County court, Attorney General James Uthmeier said he wants Meta, the titan company behind Facebook and Instagram, to boot kids under 14 years old from its platforms, strike “addictive” features like infinite scroll, and remedy past “deceptive” statements that social media is safe for teens.
“The injunctive relief, while better than nothing, is far from adequate to address the harms Meta causes,” he wrote in the Wednesday filing, before taking a shot at the estimated $12 billion to $17 billion settlement Meta agreed to pay out over the next decade.
Uthmeier said he still plans to go to trial.
“The monetary relief is also so minimal it borders on the absurd,” Uthmeier added, pointing out that Meta is worth more than a trillion dollars. “The payment required in the settlement amounts to ‘a rounding error.’”
Florida and New Mexico were the only states not included in the agreement: New Mexico because it sued separately — and won — and Florida because Uthmeier became the only attorney general to reject the money.
In a statement to the Times/Herald, Meta accused the attorney general of pursuing a “meritless” injunction two years after litigation began, urging him to instead direct “taxpayer resources” into pushing TikTok and YouTube, some of its competitors, to adopt similar restrictions for children.
“We regret that he has chosen instead to pursue a meritless preliminary injunction years into the litigation,” a Meta spokesperson said in an email. “The state cannot both claim the benefits of a settlement Florida declined to join while continuing to sue us.”
On Wednesday, Uthmeier asked the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court to force Meta to adopt standards in Florida similar to the ones agreed to in New Mexico and the multi-state settlement, as well as more restrictive ones not seen in other states.
Some of these new additions include:
- U.S. Surgeon General disclosures during account creation and sign-in,
- Quarterly court reports on the estimated number of underage users,
- Monthly reporting to parents on every account a teen uses,
- Disabled infinite scroll,
- Prompting teen users every three days to turn off personalized feeds,
- Banning targeted advertisements for young users,
- Monitoring which adults leave “inappropriate” comments on young users’ feeds.
Uthmeier’s election-year lawsuit is his latest in his legal onslaught against big companies. He’s also sued Starbucks, Target, Roblox and Pfizer, and launched the nation’s first criminal investigation into OpenAI.
The topics of the suits include culture war issues, drug prices, child predators and guns, all coming as Uthmeier gears up for his first test to keep his job: the Nov. 3 election. It will be his first after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to the post last year when its former occupant, Ashley Moody, was elevated to U.S. Senator.
Moody, more reserved both as attorney general and in her campaign to keep her new post, left mid-term because President Trump selected then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio to become his secretary of state.
Uthmeier, who went uncontested during the GOP primary, will face former State Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez in the general election.
