An appeals court ruled that requiring social platforms to report efforts to combat misinformation and hate speech likely violates the First Amendment.
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X has won an appeal to block parts of California’s content moderation law, which requires social platforms to publicly post policies against hate speech and misinformation, as well as submit semiannual reports on their enforcement efforts. A federal appeals court decided on Wednesday that the reporting aspect of the law likely violates the First Amendment, as reported earlier by Bloomberg Law.
In the lawsuit, filed against California last year, X alleged the state’s social media law violates free speech because it “compels companies like X Corp. to engage in speech against their will.” A California judge later denied X’s request for a preliminary injunction of the law, arguing that the enforcement reporting requirement doesn’t appear to be “unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law.”
The appeals court has now overturned this decision. The decision says the law’s requirements are “more extensive than necessary to serve the State’s purported goal of requiring social media companies to be transparent about their content-moderation policies.”
X owner Elon Musk gutted the platform’s content moderation team shortly after his takeover. Since then, X has been criticized for failing to remove misinformation and hate speech from the platform, despite having policies on both.
In a statement to Bloomberg Law, the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta says they are “reviewing the opinion and will respond appropriately in court.” Meanwhile, X called the decision a “victory” for the platform and “free speech nationwide.”
