California content moderation law successfully passes despite Elon Musk’s X corp’s efforts to block it.
Elon Musk’s X Corp. was unsuccessful in its attempt to prevent a California law that aims to regulate harmful posts on social media by mandating companies to disclose their content moderation policies. A federal judge in Sacramento dismissed the company’s claims that the law infringes on the free speech rights of social media platforms in an eight-page ruling on Thursday. This ruling follows Musk’s controversial endorsement of antisemitic posts on his platform, which caused significant backlash and led to X Corp. CEO Linda Yaccarino working to mitigate the consequences as major advertisers such as Sony, Discovery, Apple, and CBS halted or reduced their spending on the site.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said when he signed AB 587 in 2022 that it was intended to protect the public by requiring companies to disclose their policies on hate speech, disinformation, harassment and extremism on their platforms and report data on how the policies are being implemented.
But X Corp. complained in a September lawsuit that the law’s real purpose is to “pressure social media platforms to ‘remove’ certain constitutionally protected content that the state finds problematic.”
Spokesmen for X Corp. and California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office did not immediately return requests for comment.
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether laws backed by Republicans in Florida and Texas infringe on social media companies’ freedom of speech by limiting their freedom to decide how to present material and requiring detailed explanations for content moderation decisions. The court will give its decision by the middle of 2024.
When Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, he vowed it would be censorship-free and reinstated previously banned users while firing moderators. Researchers have said that during Musk’s tenure, the platform has seen a spike in harmful content due to policy changes regarding content moderation.
The self-styled “free speech absolutist” hired Yaccarino, who was an NBCUniversal advertising executive, to help repair media partnerships and lure back advertisers.
Musk has blamed watchdog groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Media Matters for America for the collapse of US ad revenue on X. He said that they have been trying to kill the platform with false accusations that it is overloaded. harmful content. The organizations have denied Musk’s claims.
U.S. District Judge William Shubb disagreed with X Corp’s argument that the California law unconstitutionally interferes with the company’s content screening process.
“While the reporting requirement appears to impose a substantial compliance burden on social media companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unreasonable or unduly burdensome under First Amendment law,” Shubb wrote in his order.
