Florida lawmakers seek to require social media safety education

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A state lawmaker is once more making an attempt to require Florida’s public faculties to show social media security. The training wouldn’t simply remind college students of potential risks however that posts can come again to wreck an individual’s popularity.

“Twenty years from now, if a photograph resurfaces or a factor you mentioned on-line that was actually dangerous comes again — it could actually hang-out you,” Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, mentioned.

That is simply one of many causes Burgess mentioned Florida’s public faculties needs to be educating college students the best way to defend themselves from dangerous actors, like predators or cyberbullying, and maybe dangerous posts too.

“It is actually arduous whenever you’re younger to know the reverberations, ramifications of issues that you just do when you’re younger, and the way they will influence your life afterward,” he mentioned.

E.W. Scripps

Burgess’s bill directs the Florida Division of Training to give you the specifics of the curriculum and certain add classes to an already present course. The state already does this for required instruction on U.S. historical past, the Holocaust and extra.

If this social media course sounds acquainted— that is as a result of it’s. Burgess offered it final session as properly. It bought via its first committee however did not go any additional regardless of unanimous assist.

“I am certain there’s some extra broader issues that we will do,” Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, mentioned through the Education Committee assembly in November of final 12 months. “However, I do imagine that it is a step in the precise route to coach college students on what’s one of the best, correct manner to make use of it.”

Burgess mentioned the bipartisan assist is again this 12 months. He additionally thinks 2023 will afford him extra time to make the invoice regulation.

“On the finish of the day, this transcends politics. That is about our society,” Burgess mentioned. “It is about our children. It is about defending them.”

Burgess’s laws is only one of greater than 70 payments that lawmakers have filed forward of the 2023 session. Members usually have greater than 3,000 payments to think about by the point the gavel drops. They’re going to return to Tallahassee in March and have 60 days to think about what stays and what goes.