WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, accompanied by Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and education leaders, unveiled a sweeping new legislative proposal Thursday aimed at strengthening state oversight of social media companies, app stores, and smartphone manufacturers to protect minors from online predators and features designed to encourage digital addiction.
Speaking at Polk State College, Uthmeier detailed the Safe Screens Act, a legislative package that would expand age-verification requiements, limit minors’ screen time, and penalize tech companies that fail to keep adults found to have solicited minors off their platforms.
Under the proposed legislation, phone manufacturers and major app marketplaces, including the Apple App Store and Google Play, would be required to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before minors could download age-restricted software.
Under the proposed legislation, phone manufacturers and major marketplaces like the Apple App Store and Google Play would be legally required to enforce age verification and parental consent before minors can download age-restricted software.
The package also seeks to mandate a nightly “quiet mode” shutting down social media access for minors between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., disable cosmetic filters and auto-playing features by default, and cap minor account usage at two hours daily. Additionally, tech companies would face mandatory 48-hour human review windows for reported online solicitation and a strict “one-strike” policy banning adult predators permanently.
Uthmeier stated that violations under the proposal could carry civil penalties up to $50,000 per infraction under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Sheriff Grady Judd praised the state’s aggressive legal posture, revealing that joint operations between the Attorney General’s Office and local law enforcement have resulted in more than 2,100 child predator arrests over the past 18 months. He said more than half of the cases originated in online chat rooms or gaming platforms. Judd sharply criticized tech conglomerates for failing to police their environments.
“Just the other night, I talked to a victim of one of these gaming centers,” Judd said. “Do you know what this multi-trillion-dollar gaming system did? They sued the victim […] Instead of putting algorithms in place so when we see grooming, we can stop it. They didn’t protect the victim. They went after the victim.”
Polk State College President Anastasios Kamoutsas, a former state education commissioner and prosecutor, also backed the measure, framing digital safety as a necessary extension of campus security.
The announcement comes as Florida continues standalone litigation against major tech firms, including Meta and OpenAI, having opted out of a $13 billion multistate settlement with Meta to pursue larger court damages.
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