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Lawmakers are setting up the Internet to be mostly a space for grown ups, saying it’s because children’s lives are at risk.
That’s based on rising fears of unregulated artificial intelligence and technology. Parents worry social media and AI interactions may be harmful for children. Experts ask whether social media is contributing to a mental health crisis among teens, and concerns are further justified by reports of teen suicides after interacting with an AI chatbot.
One such case is in Florida, where artificial intelligence has especially been under a microscope after 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III died by suicide in 2024 following repeated conversations with an AI chatbot.
So far, lawmakers are proposing to put age restrictions in place for AI chatbot interactions. One bill in Congress, known as the GUARD Act, mandates an age verification process for an AI chatbot.
State lawmakers have also proposed restrictions in places like Florida and Virginia, prohibiting minors from interacting with AI chatbots. States like California require disclosures and reminders that a user is interacting with AI.
That’s because lawmakers are recognizing that social media and AI “pose a clear and present danger to the physical and mental health of young people,” said Matthew Bergman, the founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center.
“Kids are dying from chatbots and social media apps,” Bergman said. “We are in the midst of a historic mental health crisis among young people.”
On the other hand, some tech companies and free speech experts say that adding age restrictions to an AI chatbot account is similar to restrictions on minors to create social media accounts — and that’s raised questions about whether free expression is at risk.
The urgency to regulate AI continually grows, and these laws become more comprehensive as the public’s concerns rapidly spike to include more than child safety.
People are also afraid of losing their jobs to the new technology, and consumers across the country are worried about AI data centers hiking up their residential utility bills.
Florida is just one example of a growing conservative push to combat the downsides of an unregulated, rapidly growing technology – while also not trying to step on the president’s toes.
That’s because White House guidance has urged Congress to preempt state-level AI laws, which the president considers burdensome. Although this hasn’t become an issue where Republicans have fully broken allegiance to the president, it’s become one that’s created a rift among conservatives weighing whether to wait for federal implementation or solve an urgent outcry to prevent more harm.
Florida’s legislation won’t head to the governor after the House didn’t hear a proposed measure in a special session late April. But it would have been one of the stricter solutions to ensuring child safety in AI chatbot platforms, by preventing minors from holding accounts without parental permission.
These types of measures mandate companies to set up age verification, which then contradicts anonymity of using these platforms, said John Coleman, the legislative counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Anonymity, however, is considered important for freedom of speech.
Additionally, AI is an “expressive tool,” Coleman said, so putting restrictions on accessing these tools could pose a First Amendment risk: “That means the people who develop and use it retain the right to share and receive information, speak anonymously, and be free from government-compelled speech.”
Bergman, who was the attorney representing the mother of Setzer in Florida, said he doesn’t believe AI is “speech” subject to any First Amendment protections. He called it a “dangerous precedent” to set, since there’s “no sentient human being involved in the speech.”
Age verification could also pose a data privacy risk, said Tom Mann, state policy manager for the South region at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a trade association suing the state for its law restricting social media access for minors. Bergman disagreed, saying social media platforms already can determine age based on activity.
“Policymakers should focus on clear, targeted solutions that address real risks without creating barriers to innovation or limiting access to new technologies,” Mann said in a statement related to Florida’s proposed AI child safety law.
The crux of the age verification debate started with porn. About 26 states have approved measures prompting adult websites to verify the age of its users.
In fact, challenges to this law made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices in a 6-3 vote along ideological grounds upheld a Texas law in a case arguing that it violated the First Amendment rights of adults.
These laws seek to shield children from accessing sexually explicit content, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote at the time that this was “valid regulation,” whereas Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent that the First Amendment protects sexually explicit materials for adults.
In Florida, legislators have also passed measures limiting children under 14 from accessing social media. A challenge to this provision is still playing out in federal courts, but associations representing platforms like YouTube, Meta and Snapchat argue that the law violates the First Amendment by keeping minors away from viewing lawful content.
Florida’s law is mostly focused on keeping much younger crowds off social media, since it allows ages 16 and up to make accounts and 14- and 15-year-olds to obtain parental permission.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier lambasted ChatGPT after investigators discovered the chatbot offered “significant advice” to a gunman who killed two and injured others at Florida State University last year.
In fact, he likened the AI chatbot to a murderer.
Uthmeier’s also investigating ChatGPT after prosecutors alleged that another murder suspect asked the AI chatbot about disposing of a body, after two University of South Florida students went missing and one of those remains were found on the Howard Frankland Bridge in Tampa.
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Stephany Matat is based in Tallahassee, Fla. She can be reached at SMatat@usatodayco.com. On X: @stephanymatat.
