California bill AB 587, touted by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom as a fix for “disinformation” on social media, has been challenged by a First Amendment lawsuit brought by podcaster and journalist Tim Pool, satirical website the Babylon Bee, and Minds.com, a free-speech friendly social media platform.
The lawsuit alleges that AB 587 was “written with the express intent to discourage expression” of constitutionally protected viewpoints.
The lawsuit also alleges that AB 587 fails the vagueness test of the Fourteenth Amendment, by its inability to specifically define what types of speech need to be reported to the government.
The plaintiffs point to the presence of numerous broad categories in the bill that have not been specifically defined, including “hate speech,” “racism,” “extremism,” “radicalization,” “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “foreign political interference.”
When Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the bill into law last year, he made it clear that the goal of the bill is to clamp down on certain types of First Amendment protected content on social media.
“California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country,” said Newsom.
While defenders of the bill have sought to argue that it merely requires “transparency” from social media companies with regards to hate speech and disinformation, even the liberal Washington Post conceded that free speech activists had a strong case to make against the legislation.
Via the Washington Post:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a controversial bill into law that aims to force greater transparency of social media companies, setting up a potential battle over whether such measures violate free-speech protections.
…
The California effort is likely to draw the same opposition from tech companies and their trade groups that has greeted the Republican-led efforts. Chamber of Progress, an industry coalition that includes Facebook parent company Meta and Google, said Wednesday it is “absolutely” looking at potential court challenges, saying such mandates raise First Amendment issues.
“It’s like requiring a bookstore to report to the government which books it carries, or requiring the New York Times to explain which stories it publishes,” said Adam Kovacevich, the coalition’s CEO.
California is not the only blue state that has attempted to regulate speech on social media. In February, a federal judged blocked a similar law in the state of New York.
The case is Minds, Inc, Tim Pool, and The Babylon Bee LLC, v. Robert A. Bonta, Attorney General of California, in the U.S District Court Central District of California, Western Division.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.