Florida HB 3 and Texas SCOPE: do they apply to a recruiting site?

Florida HB 3 is enforceable — but a stay is not a merits ruling

In CCIA & NetChoice v. Uthmeier, No. 25-11881 (11th Cir. Nov. 25, 2025) (Branch, J., joined by Lagoa; Rosenbaum, J., dissenting), the panel held: “Because the stay factors weigh in the Attorney General’s favor, we GRANT his motion to stay the preliminary injunction pending resolution of this appeal.” The court found the Attorney General had made a strong showing of likely success because HB 3 is facially content-neutral and likely satisfies intermediate scrutiny. That reversed the posture created by the June 3, 2025 preliminary injunction out of the Northern District of Florida.

Do not describe HB 3 as upheld. A stay is not a decision on the merits; “strong showing of likelihood of success” is a preliminary assessment made on a stay motion, and the statute could still be invalidated. The appeal is live. Treat HB 3 as a law you must comply with today and a law whose fate is undecided — both at once.

The covered-platform definition is a four-part conjunctive test

Fla. Stat. 501.1736(1)(e) defines “social media platform” as an online forum, website, or application that satisfies each of the following:

1. it allows users to upload content or view the content or activity of other users;
2. ten percent or more of its daily active users younger than 16 spend on average two hours per day or longer on the platform, on days when it is used, during the previous 12 months;
3. it “employs algorithms that analyze user data or information on users to select content for users”; and
4. it has any of the enumerated addictive features.

All four must be met. Commentary reads the criteria cumulatively and no source we found disputes the conjunctive reading.

The five addictive features — a closed list

Prong 4’s list contains no “including but not limited to,” so it is closed:

• Infinite scrolling — content that loads continuously, or seamless pages with no visible end.
• Push notifications or alerts about activity specific to the user’s account.
• Personal interactive metrics showing reaction-button, share, or repost counts.
• Auto-play video — video that plays without a click.
• Live-streaming.

Note what is not a way out: HB 3 has no content-based exemption for sports. The Eleventh Circuit confirmed the law “does not include exemptions based on a platform’s content (such as news, sports, and entertainment).” There is an express carve-out only for a service whose “exclusive function is e-mail or direct messaging.”

Coverage can be designed out

Because the test is conjunctive, failing prong 3 or prong 4 is dispositive. In practice that means: paginated results rather than infinite scroll; no visible reaction, share, or repost counters; click-to-play video only; no live broadcast; and, critically, no algorithmic ranking or “recommended athletes” surfacing.

Four caveats travel with that, and they are the difference between a design principle and wishful thinking:

• Prong 4 is easy to trip — push notifications alone satisfy it.
• Prong 3 is a design constraint, not a given. A coach-search ranking or a recommendation feature would satisfy it.
• Prong 2 is a factual threshold litigated in discovery, not a pleadings-stage safe harbor. “We almost certainly do not meet the 10% test” is an inference about your own user base, not a legal shield.
• This analysis covers 501.1736 only. HB 3’s separate section 501.1737 — age verification for material harmful to minors — has a different and broader trigger and was not analyzed here.

If HB 3 does apply, the duties are stricter than COPPA

Worth understanding before assuming you are outside it. Fla. Stat. 501.1736(2)(a): “A social media platform shall prohibit a minor who is younger than 14 years of age from entering into a contract with a social media platform to become an account holder.” There is no “unless” clause — no parental-consent cure. Section 501.1736(3)(a) applies the same prohibition to 14- and 15-year-olds “unless the minor’s parent or guardian provides consent.” The asymmetry is on the face of the statute.

Sections 501.1736(2)(b)(2)–(4) and (3)(b)(2)–(4) require account termination — within five business days on a minor’s request, ten on a parent’s — and permanent deletion of the associated personal information. There is a 90-day dispute window on involuntary terminations, and the statute reaches accounts the platform “treats or categorizes as belonging to” a likely under-14 or 14–15 user for ad-targeting purposes.

This is materially stricter than COPPA, which permits an under-13 account once verifiable parental consent is obtained. HB 3 forecloses the account entirely and moves the line up a year, to 14. Fla. SB 868 (effective July 1, 2025) amended subsections (2)(b), (3)(b), and (4)(b) but left the (1)(e) definition unchanged.

Texas SCOPE Act (HB 18): partially enjoined, partially in force

In Students Engaged in Advancing Texas v. Paxton, No. 1:24-CV-945-RP (W.D. Tex. Feb. 7, 2025) (Pitman, J.), the court enjoined only sections 509.052(2)(D), 509.053, 509.055, 509.056(1), and 509.057 — the monitoring-and-filtering, targeted-advertising, and content-monitoring/age-verification requirements — and denied the motion “in all other respects.”

The reasoning for what survived is in footnote 18: plaintiffs “do not show how age registration alone (without the separate content-monitoring requirements… which this Court will enjoin) independently prohibits speech,” and “do not show that the process for verifying a parent and the powers of a verified parent under HB 18 independently creates an injury.”

So the age-registration requirement (509.051) and the parental-verification provisions (509.101–102) remain enforceable against a covered digital service provider. The critical framing: this is a failure-of-proof holding at the preliminary-injunction stage, not judicial approval. Those provisions are unenjoined and therefore enforceable, but they have not been blessed, and a better-pleaded challenge could reach them later. The case is on appeal in the Fifth Circuit (Nos. 24-50721 and 25-50096, consolidated).

One disambiguation, because the dockets are easy to confuse: a Fifth Circuit stay and the SCOTUS emergency applications 25A1389 and 25A1390 in mid-2026 concern SB 2420, the App Store Accountability Act — a different statute, in a different SEAT v. Paxton case (No. 1:25-cv-01662; 5th Cir. No. 25-51073). They do not disturb the HB 18 injunction.

Does SCOPE cover a recruiting site? Genuinely unsettled

Coverage turns on the exemption at Tex. Bus. & Com. Code 509.002(b)(10), which excludes a digital service that “(A) primarily functions to provide a user with access to news, sports, commerce, or content primarily generated or selected by the digital service provider” and “(B) allows chat, comment, or other interactive functionality that is incidental to the digital service.”

The two prongs are conjunctive, and this is the trap: the bare word “sports” does not rescue a recruiting site. If athlete-created profiles and highlight video are the primary function rather than incidental, prong (A) likely fails and the exemption is unavailable. Meanwhile the 509.002(a) coverage threshold — a service that connects users for social interaction, allows a public or semi-public profile, and allows user-created content viewable by others — is plausibly met by a recruiting profile site.

Other carve-outs exist and may matter more than the sports language: 509.002(b)(4) exempts small businesses as defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration as of September 1, 2024; (b)(7) exempts education service operators under Education Code chapter 32, subchapter D; and (b)(8) exempts FERPA-governed entities primarily providing education services to students or educational institutions. SB 1860 (89th Leg., 2025) added the small-business and educational-institution exemptions, and the 509.002 applicability provision was never enjoined.

We are deliberately not giving you a coverage answer. During verification, both maximalist readings failed: the claim that “digital service” reaches essentially any website was refuted, and so was the claim that HB 18 bars terms-of-service formation with all under-18s absent parental consent. The coverage question for a recruiting platform is fact-specific and unresolved, and anyone stating it confidently in either direction is ahead of the sources.

Other states

California. The Age-Appropriate Design Code (CAADCA) reaches online services likely to be accessed by anyone under 18 — not merely under-13 — so a 13–17 recruiting profile platform falls within its coverage definition, subject to CCPA business-size thresholds that a small platform may fall below entirely. In NetChoice v. Bonta, No. 25-2366 (9th Cir. Mar. 12, 2026), the panel vacated most of the preliminary injunction, including as to the age-estimation requirement, while leaving enjoined the data-use restrictions at 1798.99.31(b)(1)–(4), the dark-patterns restriction at (b)(7), and the data-protection-impact-assessment requirement. The mandate issued April 3, 2026. The panel also emphasized that 1798.99.31(a)(5) lets a covered business avoid age estimation altogether by defaulting to applying child-level privacy and data protections to all consumers — a CAADCA-specific option that does not eliminate COPPA’s verifiable-parental-consent duty and does not satisfy Florida or Texas mandates. Practitioner analysis notes California has previously agreed to temporary enforcement stays on remand, so operative enforceability may still shift.

Everything else: we make no claim. Utah’s Minor Protection in Social Media Act, Arkansas Act 689, comparable laws in Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee, California SB 976, and app-store-level laws such as Texas SB 2420 produced no verified findings in our review. Their scope and injunction status are not covered on this page and should not be inferred from the two statutes that are.

What is still unsettled

• The merits of HB 3 in the Eleventh Circuit, with a plausible path onward.
• Whether the unenjoined SCOPE Act provisions survive the Fifth Circuit appeal or a better-pleaded challenge.
• Whether a coach-gated recruiting site falls inside or outside the SCOPE Act’s 509.002(b)(10) exemption.
• The scope, obligations, and current posture of the state laws listed immediately above.

Related

• COPPA and youth sports recruiting platforms: what actually triggers it — the federal floor these state laws sit on top of.
• What a youth athlete platform should collect — and what it shouldn’t.

Before you rely on this

This page describes publicly available law and agency guidance as we read it on the verification date shown above. It is not legal advice, and it is not a compliance certification. Several of the items below sit on interlocutory postures that can flip without notice. Confirm anything you act on with your own counsel, and with your state high school athletic association where eligibility is involved.