Uthmeier Asks Pasco Judge to Force Meta to Remove Florida Users Under 14 and Cap Teens at Two Hours a Day

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Wednesday, Oct. 7, asked a Pasco County judge to order Meta to remove Florida users under 14 from Instagram and Facebook, cap teens at two hours a day across its apps and switch off features such as autoplay and infinite scroll, six weeks after Florida refused to join a multistate settlement with the company. The request for a temporary injunction, filed in the Sixth Judicial Circuit, seeks restrictions that go beyond what Meta agreed to with dozens of other states in August, and would take effect immediately and remain in place while Florida's lawsuit moves toward trial if the court grants it.

"Florida kids should not be last in line," Uthmeier said, according to Politico.

What Florida is asking the court to order

The motion asks that Meta adopt standards similar to those in the multistate settlement and in New Mexico's separate case, then adds a list of Florida-specific demands. According to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times, Politico and Investing.com, the requested restrictions include:

• Identifying and removing Florida users under 14 from Instagram and Facebook, rather than the under-13 threshold used elsewhere
• Limiting Florida teens to two hours a day across all Meta apps, and cutting off their access to messaging once time limits are reached
• Disabling autoplay and infinite scroll for young users, turning off public "like" counts and ending late-night notifications
• Barring targeted advertising to young users
• Showing U.S. Surgeon General disclosures when users create accounts and sign in
• Prompting teens every three days to turn off personalized feeds
• Sending parents monthly reports on every account a teen uses
• Filing quarterly reports with the court estimating the number of underage users and explaining removals
• Monitoring which adults leave inappropriate comments on young users' feeds

The filing also asks the court to make Meta address what the state calls past deceptive statements that its platforms are safe for teens.

Why Florida rejected the multistate settlement

On Aug. 26, Meta announced a settlement with attorneys general from 47 states, a deal reported at roughly $17 billion to $18 billion paid over 10 years. It requires a hard daily time cap for minors, no push notifications during weekday school hours, age-assurance measures, stronger parental controls, limits on features such as like counts and an independent auditor, according to WKMG News 6. Meta said it would withhold about $5.3 billion of the payments unless YouTube and TikTok adopt similar safety features. Meta has said states can use the money for youth online safety initiatives and other priorities, which means Florida gave up a share of those funds by staying out.

Florida and New Mexico stayed out. New Mexico had already won its own case, and Texas and New Mexico reached separate deals with Meta worth $1 billion and $942 million, respectively. Uthmeier announced the same day that Florida would not sign. "We'll see them at trial," he wrote, calling the deal "nothing more than a slap on the wrist for a trillion-dollar corporation."

The new filing repeats that critique. "The injunctive relief, while better than nothing, is far from adequate to address the harms Meta causes," Uthmeier wrote, according to the Tampa Bay Times. "The monetary relief is also so minimal it borders on the absurd." The filing puts the financial remuneration owed to the settling states at $11.66 billion and calls the payment a rounding error for the company.

Some outlets have reported different totals for the deal, in part because of the withheld portion and the payment schedule.

Meta's response

Meta called the request meritless. "We regret that he has chosen instead to pursue a meritless preliminary injunction years into the litigation," a company spokesperson said, according to the Times. Meta has said its settlement terms depend on other platforms following suit, and the company suggested Florida direct its resources toward getting TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar restrictions.

Meta has disputed allegations that it intentionally designed its products to harm or addict children.

Florida's long-running case against Meta

Florida's suit grew out of a bipartisan investigation of Meta by attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont, launched after The Wall Street Journal's 2021 "Facebook Files" reports that the company knew Instagram could harm teens, especially teen girls. The state's case, brought under former Attorney General Ashley Moody and now pending in Pasco County circuit court, accuses Meta of violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms.

A temporary injunction is a significant ask at this stage. It would impose the restrictions before any trial verdict, which is why Meta is emphasizing how late in the litigation the request came. No hearing date had been reported as of Thursday.

How the request fits with HB 3

The under-14 line in Florida's filing mirrors HB 3, the 2024 state law that bars children under 14 from holding social media accounts and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. Industry groups including NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association challenged the law in federal court, and Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blocked it in June 2025. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later allowed Florida to enforce the law while the challenge continues.

Uthmeier has since used HB 3 against other platforms, including a suit asking a state court to declare TikTok a public nuisance for failing to comply with the parental consent requirement. The Meta injunction request would effectively write HB 3's age line, plus time limits and design changes the law does not require, into a court order specific to Meta.

What's next

A Pasco County circuit judge will decide whether to schedule a hearing on the temporary injunction. Meta is expected to oppose the motion in writing, and any order granting it could be appealed to Florida's Second District Court of Appeal. Uthmeier has said Florida still intends to take Meta to trial.

For Florida families, nothing changes yet. The settling states' terms apply to Meta's operations under that agreement, but the Florida-specific limits, including the two-hour daily cap and removal of under-14 users, would take effect only if a judge grants the injunction.