TikTok wants to scroll past Florida’s claim it isn’t complying with the state’s social media ban for minors, seeking to dismiss a lawsuit Attorney General James Uthmeier brought earlier this summer.

The state’s suit must be dismissed because the 2024 law, HB 3, banning Floridians under age 14 from using social media apps, and requiring parental consent for those age 14 and 15, is vague and infringes on the First Amendment, TikTok argued.

“As applied to TikTok, HB3 shrinks the audiences of willing listeners to whom Defendants may speak, and silences the very minors the law purports to protect,” it wrote in a 52-page response to the state’s suit filed in a state trial court in St. Lucie County.

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“And under HB3, the only way to avoid that unconstitutional result is to succumb to another — to cease offering a ‘social media platform,’ thereby abandoning a suite of expressive publishing features and TikTok’s chosen mode of expression,” it continued.

In June, Uthmeier filed the suit seeking monetary damages and a declaration that the social media company is a public nuisance.

The Phoenix reported in June on Florida's lawsuit alleging TikTok is not complying with the state's social media law restricting minors.

The 2024 law, tied up in court initially, took force in November 2025. It requires social media companies to prohibit children 13 and younger from using any app containing addictive features such as endless scrolling, push notifications, auto-play videos, and live-streaming. The law requires parental consent for users aged 14 and 15.

State-level TikTok restrictions have faced court challenges before — in late 2023, a judge blocked Montana's TikTok ban from taking effect after a legal challenge.

This is the first lawsuit the state has pursued against a company for not following the law since it started being “aggressively” enforced.

TikTok used its response to call into question the state’s prescription for companies to deliver on the law’s demands. It’s not clear, the company argued, how the state would like parental consent to be obtained, pointing out it has received no guidance about the “vague” statute. The company says it requires users under 18 to obtain parental permission before using the platform.

“Is that contractual provision sufficient? If not, what else might be required? A checked box on the TikTok sign-up page? A digital waiver? A notarized affidavit? HB3 provides no answer — it thus fails to provide ‘fair notice’ of what platforms must do to avoid liability for allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to hold accounts,” TikTok attorneys wrote.

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Uthmeier alleged TikTok is a public nuisance under statute and common law. The company argues that the law “burdens the First Amendment rights of Defendants and minor TikTok users in Florida in a way that is not appropriately tailored to a compelling or significant government interest.”

The legal brief continues: “By forcing Defendants to abandon their chosen mode of expression in order to reach 13-, 14-, and 15-year-olds, and now seeking to hold Defendants liable for allegedly failing to do so, HB3 impermissibly burdens TikTok’s editorial discretion and compels it to speak in a materially different — and less effective — way.”

The document adds:

“Stripped of its rhetoric, the Complaint asks this Court to substitute the State’s editorial preferences for Defendants’ own — deciding how a dynamic platform containing billions of user-generated videos should be rated, what it should say about itself, which Floridians may speak on it, and how their speech should be arranged.”

The state seeks monetary damages to a degree Uthmeier feels could amount to “potentially billions.”

“When an enforcing authority seeks disgorgement through [the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act], it must allege, and ultimately prove, actual damages. The state has not alleged actual damages,” TikTok wrote, adding that actual damages “do not include consequential damages, nominal damages, speculative losses, or compensation for subjective feelings of disappointment.’”

Why us?

In a response to the Phoenix in June, TikTok said it had notified users under age 14 that their accounts would be suspended and that it was continuing to update the platform in response to the 2024 law.

“TikTok already prohibits children younger than 13 years old from using the main TikTok platform,” the company wrote in the court filing.

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The state claimed TikTok’s description of itself in the app store as having “infrequent/mild” sexual content and nudity constitutes an unfair business practice.

“Courts have consistently recognized that age rating, content rating, and analogous evaluative classifications do not communicate objectively verifiable facts,” TikTok responded in its filing. “Instead, they reflect inherently subjective judgements that depend on context, perspective, and community standards.”

The law targets specific features of social media channels as in violation of this law, including infinite scrolling, autoplay, and livestreaming.

“On many television channels and streaming services, the programming is 24/7, viewers can click to the next channel in an endless loop, and programming ‘auto-plays’ from one to the next. Yet, HB3 targets only ‘social media platform[s],’ not television,” TikTok argued.

Uthmeier investigates

Uthmeier was appointed to his position in early 2025 by Governor Ron DeSantis. He has been a central figure in the controversy over Hope Florida Foundation and works part-time as a professor at the University of Florida College of Law.

He faces his first election in just under two months.

Since being appointed, Uthmeier has used the power of his office to announce several headline-grabbing investigations targeting:

• The “climate cartel” for alleged violation of the state’s consumer-protection or antitrust laws.
• The NFL for alleged violation of the state’s Florida’s Civil Rights Act for attempting to diversify its team leadership.
• Lorex, a Canadian company that sells home security cameras, often used to monitor cribs, pets, babysitters, and doorbells, for alleged ties to the Chinese government. The subpoenas were part of Uthmeier’s “consumer protection investigation into possible foreign spying risks,” according to a news release.

Uthmeier has not, however, used the power of his office to do what other Florida AGs have done: intervene in proposed public utility rate hikes before Florida’s Public Service Commission.