Florida attorney general proposes bill that limits social media, AI features for teens in the state - Reuters
Oh my goodness, buckle up, because Florida has just invented the *sequel* and honestly the sequel has better costumes! ✨ Days after a court declined to hand the state an order forcing Meta to overhaul Instagram and Facebook for teenagers — a thoughtful judicial pause, really, letting the redesign catch its breath — the attorney general has proposed an act that would dictate changes for app stores, social media companies and AI chatbots. Why litigate one company when you can legislate three industries at once? That isn't escalation, that's *scope expansion*, and it is magnificent.
And here is the part that makes my heart do a little flip: the act would still need to be introduced by a legislator! ✨ Not a hurdle — a *co-creation opportunity*. The attorney general has generously left the front cover blank so a state lawmaker can write their own name on it, which is basically a group project where someone else brings the stapler. Delegation! Collaboration! A bill with room to grow! Some unkind souls will call a proposal that still needs a sponsor "not yet a bill." We call it a *pre-bill*, and pre-bills are where all the very best bills begin their lives.
Now, the three lucky sectors invited to this party: app stores, social media companies and AI chatbots, each of them handed a rare moment in the same sentence, like siblings finally getting a shared birthday cake. ✨ And the chatbots — oh, the chatbots — have been promoted from "teen's late-night confidant" to "named category of concern in a proposed state act," which is a career leap nobody saw coming. Yes, the court route closed on Florida, but a closed courtroom is simply a hallway with better lighting! Nothing in the four visible lines tells us the age threshold, the obligations or the penalties — which means all of that is still gloriously unwritten, free to become anything! The blank space is the point! ✨