Eleventh Circuit Reverses Injunction on Florida HB3 Social Media Law

The Eleventh Circuit ruled on October 14, 2026 that Florida's HB3 restrictions on minors' social-media accounts likely survive the First Amendment, reversing the preliminary injunction against the law as applied to industry members and vacating the injunction as to their facial challenge.

Information last verified on October 18, 2026. This is a preliminary-injunction ruling, not a final judgment on HB3's constitutionality, and the case now returns to the district court.

Status: Decided October 14, 2026 in a published panel opinion, Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Attorney General, State of Florida, No. 25-11881 (11th Cir.), and remanded to the Northern District of Florida. The district court's injunction had been stayed since November 25, 2025, so the account restrictions were already enforceable before this ruling. As of October 18, 2026 no final judgment on the merits has been entered.

Jurisdiction scope: This article covers the Eleventh Circuit's October 14, 2026 preliminary-injunction ruling on Fla. Stat. § 501.1736, the HB3 provision governing minors' social-media accounts. It does not cover Florida's separate age-verification requirement for material harmful to minors at Fla. Stat. §§ 501.1737 and 501.1738, and it does not decide any other state's statute. For the statutory background on both Florida regimes, see Florida Age Verification Law: Two Provisions, Two Lawsuits, One AG Crackdown.

What Happened

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that Florida's HB3 account restrictions are likely constitutional as applied to the social-media platforms that challenged them. The opinion is marked FOR PUBLICATION, runs 59 pages with a concurrence, and was written by Judge Newsom for a panel of Judges Newsom, Luck, and Tjoflat. The case is Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Attorney General, State of Florida, No. 25-11881, on appeal from the Northern District of Florida, D.C. Docket No. 4:24-cv-00438-MW-MAF. The Eleventh Circuit's own oral-argument recording index lists the case as argued on March 10, 2026, and the opinion carries a filing date of October 14, 2026.

The panel reached four holdings. First, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, which the opinion refers to collectively as CCIA, have associational standing to assert their platform members' First Amendment rights. Second, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to abstain under Younger v. Harris. Third, HB3 implicates the First Amendment but "likely passes First Amendment muster because it is a content-neutral speech regulation that satisfies intermediate scrutiny" (slip op. at 3). The opinion's Part V recap states the same holding in slightly different words: "although HB3 implicates First Amendment interests, it likely passes constitutional muster, as it is a content-neutral speech restriction that satisfies intermediate scrutiny" (slip op. at 46). Fourth, the facial challenge fails because CCIA did not carry the burden the Supreme Court's decision in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC places on facial challengers.

The court's disposition splits along that as-applied and facial line. The panel wrote that it would "AFFIRM the district court's determinations that CCIA has associational standing and its decision not to abstain under Younger, REVERSE the preliminary injunction with respect to CCIA's First Amendment claim as applied to its members, VACATE the preliminary injunction with respect to CCIA's facial First Amendment challenge, and REMAND to the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion" (slip op. at 47).

The procedural path, and why the stay matters

The opinion recites a long docket history because that history drove the abstention question. CCIA filed its facial and as-applied challenges on October 28, 2024, shortly before HB3 took effect, and moved for a preliminary injunction the next day. The district court first denied that motion on associational standing grounds in a March 13, 2025 order, holding that CCIA had not alleged that at least one specific member was likely regulated by the law. CCIA amended its complaint and renewed the motion.

On April 21, 2025, before the district court ruled on the renewed motion, Florida filed an enforcement action in state court against Snap, a member of co-plaintiff NetChoice, alleging HB3 violations. Snap removed that case to federal court. The district court then granted the renewed preliminary injunction in a June 3, 2025 order, concluding that HB3 was likely a content-neutral regulation but was likely insufficiently tailored to survive intermediate scrutiny, and enjoined enforcement of the challenged provisions.

Here is the distinction that is easiest to blur. The Eleventh Circuit stayed that injunction pending appeal in an order issued November 25, 2025, cited in the opinion as Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Uthmeier, No. 25-11881, 2025 WL 3458571 (11th Cir. Nov. 25, 2025), from which Judge Rosenbaum dissented. The opinion explains that the stay order had tentatively agreed with the district court on standing, on Younger, and on content neutrality, but had tentatively concluded that HB3 was sufficiently tailored to satisfy intermediate scrutiny, and had granted the stay on the ground that Florida was likely to succeed on the merits. A stay of an injunction lifts the block on enforcement without resolving the appeal. What changed on October 14, 2026 is the merits ruling on the preliminary injunction itself, not the practical ability of the Florida Department of Legal Affairs to enforce the statute during the appeal.

What the Law Actually Says

HB3 was approved by the Governor on March 25, 2024 and became chapter 2024-42, Laws of Florida, with an effective date of January 1, 2025. The Florida Senate's action log shows the committee substitute passing the House 109 to 4 on final concurrence and the Senate 30 to 5. The social-media provision at issue is codified at Fla. Stat. § 501.1736.

Coverage is defined by four cumulative criteria in § 501.1736(1)(e). A "social media platform" is an online forum, website, or application that allows users to upload content or view other users' content or activity; on which 10 percent or more of daily active users younger than 16 spend on average two hours per day or longer; that employs algorithms analyzing user data to select content for users; and that has at least one listed "addictive feature." The listed features are infinite scrolling, push notifications or alerts, displays of personal interactive metrics such as reaction and share counts, auto-play video, and live-streaming. The definition excludes a service whose exclusive function is email or direct messaging shared only between sender and recipients.

The substantive duties are age-tiered. Under § 501.1736(2)(a), a covered platform must prohibit a minor younger than 14 from entering into a contract to become an account holder, and under § 501.1736(2)(b) it must terminate such accounts, allow the minor or a confirmed parent to request termination, and permanently delete the associated personal information absent a legal retention requirement. Under § 501.1736(3), 14- and 15-year-olds may hold accounts only with parental or guardian consent, with parallel termination duties. The statute gives an account holder 90 days to dispute a termination, makes a minor's own termination request effective within five business days, and a parent's within 10 business days.

Two drafting details matter to this litigation. Subsection (4) is a severability fallback: if a court enjoins subsection (3), that subsection is severed and 14- and 15-year-olds are barred from holding accounts outright rather than permitted to hold them with parental consent. And subsection (8) states that if a platform allows an account holder to use the platform, the parties have entered into a contract, which is the statutory hook for the state's characterization of account creation as a commercial transaction.

Enforcement runs mainly through the state. Section 501.1736(5) deems a knowing or reckless violation an unfair and deceptive trade practice actionable under part II of chapter 501 solely by the Department of Legal Affairs, authorizes a civil penalty of up to $50,000 per violation plus reasonable attorney fees and court costs, and permits punitive damages where the noncompliance is a consistent pattern of knowing or reckless conduct. Section 501.1736(6) adds a narrow private remedy: a platform that knowingly or recklessly violates the account provisions is liable to the minor account holder for up to $10,000 in damages plus costs and fees, the action may be brought only on behalf of a minor account holder, and it must be filed within one year of when the complainant knew or reasonably should have known of the violation. The statute applies to "residents," defined as persons who live in Florida more than six months of the year.

HB3 also created a different regime that is not before the Eleventh Circuit in this appeal. Fla. Stat. § 501.1737 requires age verification by commercial entities that knowingly and intentionally publish or distribute material harmful to minors where such material is a substantial portion, defined as more than 33.3 percent, of the site's content, and § 501.1738 defines anonymous age verification and sets the duties of the third parties that perform it. Those sections carry their own litigation history and are analyzed on our state-by-state age-verification table. Florida's broader consumer-data rules, including the Digital Bill of Rights, sit in a separate statutory scheme described in our overview of Florida's data privacy framework.

Why the Panel Applied Intermediate Scrutiny

The analysis turns on a single classification, so it is worth tracking each step the panel took.

The court first asked whether HB3 implicates the First Amendment at all. Florida argued that HB3 "regulates product design, not children's speech" and reaches only a commercial transaction, namely a platform's ability to enter into a contract with a child. The panel wrote that even accepting that characterization, HB3 disproportionately burdens the platforms' protected activity of compiling and curating others' speech, because it limits their ability to deliver curated content to covered users and requires parental consent before communicating with 14- and 15-year-olds. Constitutional scrutiny was therefore triggered.

The harder question was which scrutiny. The panel held HB3 facially content neutral: "It regulates social-media platforms based on their functional capabilities and features, not the content they communicate" (slip op. at 27). The opinion reasons that the statute never references the substance of speech on any platform, that Truth Social is as exposed to HB3 as Instagram if the coverage criteria are met, and that neither a platform nor a user can avoid or mitigate the law's effects by altering the substance of what is posted. It found the stated justification, protecting children from social-media addiction and associated mental-health harms, likewise unrelated to the content of expression. The panel added that the email and direct-messaging exclusion is itself content neutral, because whether the exclusion applies has nothing to do with the subject matter of any correspondence.

The opinion distinguishes two Supreme Court decisions in terms the panel itself supplies. It describes Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n as having invalidated a California restriction on selling violent video games to minors precisely because that law separated violent content from non-violent content, a distinction the panel says HB3 does not draw. It describes TikTok, Inc. v. Garland as having treated a divest-or-close requirement as content neutral because the law did not target particular speech by reason of its content and had a justification unrelated to the content of expression, and the panel treats HB3 as the closer analogue.

The panel also addressed Moody v. NetChoice, LLC directly. As the opinion characterizes it, the Supreme Court treated Florida's earlier social-media law as content based because it restricted platforms' ability to delete, alter, label, or deprioritize posts, that is, their content-moderation choices. By contrast, the panel wrote, HB3 "doesn't restrict platforms' content-moderation determinations or tools" and instead reaches front-end access and website mechanics (slip op. at 29).

CCIA's own theory of content discrimination was that HB3 targets "social" speech. The panel rejected it: "The 'social'-ness of speech is a function of its form, not its substance" (slip op. at 30). The opinion notes that Judge Rosenbaum, dissenting from the stay order, had similarly described HB3's restrictions as a proxy for a content-based regulation of public, interactive, user-to-user social speech, and the panel respectfully disagreed.

Having classified the law as content neutral, the panel applied intermediate scrutiny, which it framed as requiring that the law advance important governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and not burden substantially more speech than necessary. CCIA conceded the importance of the interest. On tailoring, the panel listed four features of the statute: it is age-delimited and imposes nothing on those 16 and older; it restricts creating an account rather than access to a platform as such, since a covered minor may still use a platform through someone else's account or without an account; it reaches only platforms meeting the 10 percent and two-hour threshold; and it operates as a conditional restriction on the combined use of algorithms and addictive features, which a platform can avoid by dropping either.

Two doctrinal moves in that section are worth flagging because they will be litigated again. The panel distinguished Packingham v. North Carolina on breadth, noting that the North Carolina felony statute there covered all registered sex offenders, swept in sites the Supreme Court described as including Amazon.com, Washingtonpost.com, and Webmd.com, and forbade any usage rather than account creation. And in footnote 10 the panel acknowledged that McCullen v. Coakley could be read to import something like a least-restrictive-means requirement into intermediate scrutiny, then answered that Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is both more recent and, as an Internet case, more closely on point. The opinion describes Free Speech Coalition as having upheld a Texas age-verification statute for pornographic websites under intermediate scrutiny, and reads it to leave room for an age requirement that incidentally limits minors' access to some protected speech so long as it operates content neutrally.

The panel was explicit that it was not endorsing the policy. "Now, none of that is necessarily to say that HB3 embodies the best policy choice. Maybe, maybe not" (slip op. at 35).

The As-Applied and Facial Split

The two halves of the disposition do different work, and they are easy to conflate.

On the as-applied claim the panel decided a merits question at the preliminary-injunction stage: HB3 is likely constitutional as applied to CCIA's members, so the injunction resting on that claim was reversed.

On the facial claim the panel decided nothing about how HB3's valid and invalid applications compare. It held that CCIA failed to carry the burden Moody assigns to facial challengers. Under the two-step inquiry the opinion draws from Moody, a court must first assess the law's scope and then decide which applications violate the First Amendment and measure them against the rest, and the challenger must show that the unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh the constitutional ones.

CCIA had argued that HB3 is unconstitutional in all its applications because it reaches any service where users upload and view content. The panel answered that engaging in speech is not the same as engaging in fully protected speech, offering the hypothetical of a platform hosting only unprotected expression, and reasoning that a restriction on access to such a site would draw only rational-basis review while a content-neutral age requirement on a site hosting speech protected for adults but not children would draw intermediate scrutiny. The panel also rejected the argument that Florida bore the burden of identifying constitutional applications, writing that in a facial posture the burden sits with the plaintiff.

The opinion acknowledges the intuitive objection, which it labels the "come on" objection, that most platforms within HB3's ambit overwhelmingly host protected speech. Its answer is that impressionistic judgment does not satisfy Moody, and that CCIA's briefing "doesn't mention even a single platform that isn't one of its members" (slip op. at 45). The panel notes that the Eleventh Circuit learned this lesson the hard way, since Moody faulted its earlier decision for confining the analysis to heartland applications, and that both it and the Fifth Circuit remanded their post-Moody cases for record development. In footnote 4 the panel also leaves open the overbreadth challenge asserting the rights of the members' users, observing that CCIA appeared to retreat from it and that the district court may address those issues on remand.

Judge Newsom wrote separately, joining his own majority opinion in full, to flag a question he did not need to answer. The concurrence reads the Supreme Court's decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J. ex rel. Jackson as having said in a footnote that "as-applied challenges are not entertained when courts apply intermediate scrutiny or rational basis review." The concurrence lays out the case for a broad reading of that sentence and the case for a narrow one, notes that the Eleventh Circuit and its sister circuits have long entertained as-applied First Amendment claims under intermediate scrutiny and that the Supreme Court itself did so in TikTok, and concludes that "before exporting it to the First Amendment context, I think it's wise to await a clearer signal from the Supreme Court."

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The decisive step in this opinion is classification, not tailoring. Once the panel concluded that HB3 regulates account creation and interface mechanics rather than the substance of speech, the applicable test became intermediate scrutiny, and the state gained the latitude the opinion repeatedly describes: no least-restrictive-means obligation, no freestanding underinclusiveness objection, and no requirement that the legislature pick the approach a court would prefer. The district court had agreed on content neutrality and still enjoined the law on tailoring. That the same classification produced opposite tailoring results in the two courts is a fair measure of how much room intermediate scrutiny leaves.

The reversal and the vacatur carry different weight going forward. The reversal reflects a merits judgment, at the likelihood stage, that the statute survives as applied to these members. The vacatur reflects a failure of proof. Nothing in the facial portion of the opinion holds that HB3's valid applications outnumber its invalid ones, and the court says in terms that it cannot conduct that comparison on this record. A reader who treats the facial ruling as a substantive endorsement of the statute is reading in something the opinion withholds.

It is also worth being precise about what a preliminary-injunction ruling is. The panel assessed likelihood of success, and the case has been remanded for proceedings consistent with the opinion. This is not a final judgment that § 501.1736 is constitutional, and we will not predict what the district court, the full court, or the Supreme Court does next.

One piece of the tailoring reasoning is likely to recur in litigation over similar statutes: the panel's point that HB3 restricts account creation rather than access, because a covered minor may still use a platform through a parent's or another person's account or without an account at all. That framing does real work in the opinion, and it is an empirical proposition about how platforms operate as much as a legal one, which makes it the kind of premise a developed record on remand could test.

Finally, Judge Newsom's concurrence is a signal about structure rather than this case. If the broad reading of the B.P.J. footnote he describes were adopted, the as-applied route that succeeded for nobody here, but that the panel still took seriously, would close for an entire category of First Amendment claims. The concurrence declines to go there, and says why, and that is where the question sits today.

How This Affects You

For Florida readers, the practical content of the law is in the statute rather than the opinion. Section 501.1736 directs platforms, not families. A minor younger than 14 cannot become an account holder on a covered platform, a 14- or 15-year-old needs parental or guardian consent, and the platform carries the compliance duty, including termination with a 90-day dispute window and deletion of personal information tied to a terminated account. A confirmed parent or guardian may request termination of a covered minor's account, effective within 10 business days under the statute.

The enforcement structure is narrow in two directions. Public enforcement belongs to the Department of Legal Affairs under Florida's deceptive and unfair trade practices part, with a civil penalty ceiling of $50,000 per violation. Private enforcement under § 501.1736(6) exists only on behalf of a minor account holder, caps damages at $10,000, and has a one-year limitation period measured from when the claimant knew or reasonably should have known of the alleged violation. The statute creates no criminal penalty and no claims process a reader can file through on a website.

Outside Florida, nothing in this opinion changes another state's statute. The Eleventh Circuit's published decisions bind federal courts in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, and the opinion's own footnote 1 collects parallel challenges to minors' social-media laws in other states, each of which turns on its own statutory text and record. Whether a particular state's law resembles HB3 in the ways the panel found significant, especially the use of feature-based coverage criteria rather than content-based ones, is a question about that state's text. The Texas age-verification statute that the Supreme Court addressed in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the decision this panel leaned on for its tailoring analysis, is covered in Texas Age Verification Law: Chapter 129B and FSC v. Paxton Explained, and the federal bills in this area are summarized in our explainer on KOSA and COPPA 2.0.

What Happens Next

The case returns to the Northern District of Florida for proceedings consistent with the opinion. The facial challenge is the live question there, because the panel vacated rather than resolved it and identified exactly what is missing: evidence or briefing addressing the full range of HB3's applications and the constitutionality of those applications. Footnote 4 also leaves the users'-rights overbreadth theory available on remand if CCIA chooses to press it.

Two related appeals are visible in the opinion itself. Footnote 2 notes that on the same day the panel heard argument in this case, it heard argument in the appeal from the district court's refusal to remand Florida's enforcement action against Snap to state court, Office of the Attorney General, State of Florida, Department of Legal Affairs v. Snap Inc., No. 25-12814. Footnote 1 notes the Eleventh Circuit appeal in the Georgia case, No. 25-12436, which was still pending when this opinion issued and was decided the next day, on October 15, 2026, when the same panel affirmed standing, vacated the preliminary injunction against Georgia's SB 351, and remanded.

The events that would convert this into a new story are specific: a rehearing or rehearing en banc order, a petition for certiorari, or a district-court ruling on remand that reaches the facial challenge on a developed record. We verify this page's docket references against the court's own filings, and will update it when any of those occur.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. This article covers a federal appellate ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and a Florida statute, Fla. Stat. § 501.1736. Sources were verified on October 18, 2026. Laws change; consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Related articles

• How Florida's two HB3 regimes differ
• Age Verification Laws by State: all 27 states and court status
• Georgia Age Verification Law: One Bill, Two Very Different Statutes
• The Eleventh Circuit's Georgia SB 351 ruling
• Where the federal KOSA and COPPA 2.0 bills stand

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Last updated: 2026-10-18. The case has been remanded to the Northern District of Florida; we will update this page if the docket moves.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did the Eleventh Circuit uphold Florida's HB3 social media law?

Not in a final sense. The October 14, 2026 ruling in No. 25-11881 is a preliminary-injunction decision. The panel held that HB3 likely passes First Amendment muster as a content-neutral regulation satisfying intermediate scrutiny, reversed the injunction on the as-applied claim, vacated it on the facial claim, and remanded. A likelihood-of-success holding at this stage is not a final judgment that Fla. Stat. section 501.1736 is constitutional.

Was Florida's under-14 social media account ban blocked before this ruling?

It was blocked for part of the litigation, not throughout. The district court enjoined enforcement on June 3, 2025, and the Eleventh Circuit stayed that injunction on November 25, 2025, with Judge Rosenbaum dissenting, which allowed enforcement to proceed while the appeal was decided. The October 14, 2026 opinion then reversed the injunction as to the as-applied claim and vacated it as to the facial claim. A stay and a merits ruling are different things.

What does Fla. Stat. section 501.1736 actually require platforms to do?

A covered platform must prohibit minors younger than 14 from becoming account holders, require parental or guardian consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, terminate non-compliant accounts while allowing 90 days to dispute the termination, honor termination requests from the minor within five business days and from a confirmed parent within 10 business days, and permanently delete personal information tied to a terminated account unless a law requires retention.

Which platforms does the Florida law cover?

Coverage under section 501.1736(1)(e) requires all four criteria: users can upload content or view other users' content; 10 percent or more of daily active users younger than 16 spend two hours or more per day on average; the service uses algorithms analyzing user data to select content; and it has at least one listed addictive feature, meaning infinite scrolling, push notifications, displays of personal interactive metrics, auto-play video, or live-streaming. Services whose exclusive function is email or direct messaging between sender and recipients are excluded.

Why did the court apply intermediate scrutiny instead of strict scrutiny?

Because it classified HB3 as content neutral. The panel wrote that the statute regulates platforms based on their functional capabilities and features rather than the content they communicate, that no platform or user can avoid the law by changing what is posted, and that Florida's stated purpose of reducing social-media addiction harms is unrelated to the content of expression. Content-neutral speech regulations draw intermediate scrutiny, which does not require the least restrictive means.

What is the difference between the reversal and the vacatur in this decision?

The reversal addresses the as-applied claim and rests on a merits conclusion that HB3 likely survives intermediate scrutiny as applied to the plaintiffs' members. The vacatur addresses the facial claim and rests on a failure of proof: the panel held that the challengers did not carry the burden Moody places on facial challengers to show that the law's unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh its constitutional ones, and said the record did not let the court conduct that comparison.

Does this ruling affect Florida's age-verification law for adult websites?

No. HB3 created two separate regimes. This appeal concerns only section 501.1736, on minors' social-media accounts. The age-verification requirement for material harmful to minors sits at section 501.1737, with definitions at section 501.1738, and applies to commercial entities whose sites consist of more than 33.3 percent of such material. The October 14, 2026 opinion does not analyze those sections.

Can a minor or a parent sue a platform under HB3?

Section 501.1736(6) creates a limited private action. It may be brought only on behalf of a minor account holder, requires a knowing or reckless violation, allows up to $10,000 in damages plus court costs and reasonable attorney fees, and must be filed within one year of when the complainant knew or reasonably should have known of the violation. Public enforcement is separate and belongs to the Florida Department of Legal Affairs, which may seek civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation.

Does this opinion apply outside Florida?

The opinion interprets the First Amendment and a Florida statute. As a published Eleventh Circuit decision it is binding precedent in federal courts in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, but it does not resolve any other state's law. Footnote 1 of the opinion lists parallel challenges to minors' social-media statutes in several states, each proceeding on its own text and record.