Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit this week against Snap, the operator of Snapchat, alleging the company hosts features that are addictive for young users.
The suit,
filed Monday, claims Snapchat’s features for infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, push notifications and interactive metrics violate a state law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last year.
“Snap, Inc. has acknowledged in other litigation that it is subject to HB 3, yet is openly defying Florida law,” Uthmeier’s office said Tuesday in a release.
According to Uthmeier’s office, these tools are considered “addictive design features” under the law, H.B. 3, which was approved in March 2024 and went into effect at the start of 2025.
“The damages inflicted upon younger individuals due to excessive use of social media are directly attributed to the deliberate design decisions made by the proprietors of specific social media platforms, such as Snap,” the lawsuit claimed.
The lawsuit accuses Snap of misleading parents regarding the app’s safety, alleging that it includes addictive elements and provides opportunities for sexual predators and drug traffickers to reach children.
HB 3 additionally bans social media sites equipped with such features from providing accounts to individuals who are 13 years old or younger. It also mandates that these platforms must obtain consent from parents or guardians before granting access to users between the ages of 14 and 15.
“Despite knowing that Snapchat can readily be used to access pornography and purchase drugs, along with numerous other risks, Snap persists in promoting the platform in Florida as suitable for users as young as 13,” the statement read.
According to the complaint, Snap enters into contracts with and provides accounts to Florida users whom they know are under 14 years old. Additionally, for Florida users aged 14 or 15, the company does not obtain parental consent prior to forming these agreements and granting access.
A representative from Snap Inc. condemned the legislation, saying it “fails to properly handle age confirmation and violates” individuals’ First Amendment freedoms. Additionally, they contended that this law could lead to potential problems with user data security and confidentiality.
“We think there are more privacy-focused approaches to ensuring online security and handling age verification, which can be implemented at the operating system, app store, or device level,” stated the spokesperson in an official response to The Hill.
The law is
being challenged
In federal court, technology sector organizations NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association have filed a case. They claim that the legislation breaches the First Amendment.
We had wished for the state to permit this challenge to go forward via the appropriate legal channels,” stated the Snap representative. “However, they have opted to lodge a complaint in state court with the aim of sidestepping matters that are currently under consideration in federal court.
The legal battle arises as part of an ongoing nationwide discussion within the sector about age confirmation, with questions surrounding whether this responsibility falls upon the app stores or the applications themselves.
Snapchat, alongside other major social media platforms such as X and Meta, feel that the responsibility for age verification lies with the app stores.
The firms backed a piece of legislation.
recently signed in Utah
This mandates that app stores must confirm users’ ages and obtain parental approval for young people under the age of consent before they can download apps.
Apple and Google, operators of the market’s biggest app stores, dismiss this claim, asserting that age verification poses privacy risks for young users or their custodians. Both firms believe that developers should be responsible for managing age verification instead.
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