Florida Is Pushing for Stricter Meta Protections Than the $17.1 Billion Settlement. Here Is What the State Is Asking For.

Florida has asked a state judge to grant a temporary injunction requiring Meta to implement changes to Instagram and Facebook immediately, while the state continues its lawsuit. Florida declined to join the multistate settlement reached by 48 other states and territorial Attorneys General, and is pursuing its own case under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Why Florida did not join the settlement

Florida’s AG declined to join the $17.1 billion multistate settlement on two grounds. First, the settlement does not go far enough to protect children from the consequences of Meta’s alleged deceptions and exposure to products designed to addict them. Second, given Meta’s size and $1.86 trillion in revenue, the settlement amount is, in Florida’s characterisation, a slap on the wrist.

Florida is continuing its lawsuit and has asked the court to impose a set of changes immediately, as a temporary injunction, with those changes remaining in place throughout the proceedings.

The features Florida is targeting

The lawsuit names a specific set of design features as unfair tools: appearance-altering filters, likes and comments, infinite scroll, autoplay, Reels, ephemeral or time-sensitive content such as stories and lives, multiple accounts facilitated for single users, notifications, and ineffective time-management tools.

What the injunction would require

Florida is asking the court to require Meta to verify users’ ages and remove those under 14. On usage, Florida wants a two-hour daily cap and a 60-hour monthly cap across all Meta platforms, with mandatory pauses every 60 and 90 minutes. Florida is asking for privacy-first default settings that cannot be disabled.

On notifications, Florida wants them blocked from 9pm to 8am and from 8am to 3pm on academic weekdays for teen users, with no option to disable those restrictions. On parental controls, Florida wants Meta to alert parents when their child is messaged by an adult, and to report to parents when a teen user repeatedly searches for suicide, self-harm, or eating disorder content.

Florida also wants Meta to prevent secondary accounts from the same teen user entirely and to respond to harmful content reports within six hours in 90% of cases.

How Florida’s demands compare to the multistate settlement

The multistate settlement and Florida’s injunction request overlap in several areas but diverge significantly in others.

On pauses, the settlement suggested interruptions at 60 and 90 minutes. Florida wants them mandatory. On privacy settings, the settlement allows them to be adjusted. Florida wants them locked. On age restrictions, the settlement bans under-13s. Florida wants to ban under-14s and requires Meta to partner with schools and child safety organisations to report underage users through a dedicated portal.

On notifications, the settlement restricts them from midnight to 7am and allows parents to remove those restrictions. Florida wants restrictions from 9pm to 8am and during school hours, with no ability to disable them. On secondary accounts, the settlement allows multiple accounts but applies limits cumulatively. Florida wants secondary accounts for the same teen user prevented entirely.

Florida also wants Meta to notify parents of specific content a teen has searched for. The multistate settlement contains no equivalent requirement.

The settlement included a court-appointed monitor for compliance. Florida’s suit does not. Meta will deliver quarterly compliance reports instead.

No monetary compensation has been requested at this stage of the Florida proceedings.

Fairpatterns detects these design mechanics automatically, across platforms and at scale.

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