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New Florida society media legislation is a double-edged sword: it is the first state law to regulate the moderation of online content, and it will almost certainly become the first law to be thrown out in the courts.
On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Stop Social Media Censorship Act, which severely limits the ability of large social media platforms to moderate or limit user content. The invoice Republican anger is a legislative distillation, in recent episodes of alleged anti-conservative bias, e.g. Twitter and Facebook Close Donald Trump’s account and remove the spread bad New York Post The story of Hunter Biden. In particular, it imposes heavy fines ($ 250,000 a day) on any platform that disables the account of a candidate for political office and prohibits actions against “journalistic companies”.
It is very difficult, however, to imagine the enforcement of any of these provisions.
“That’s obviously unconstitutional, you wouldn’t do an exam,” said A. Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami. With a well-established precedent of the Supreme Court, the First Amendment prohibits private entities from being forced to publish or broadcast someone else’s speech. Prohibiting the “disagreement” of political candidates would probably be understood as a mandatory provision against the constitution. “This law seems like a political freebie,” Froomkin said. “You have to make a pander, and nothing bad happens because there’s no chance of you surviving in court.” (The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)
The Constitution is not the only problem with the new law. There is also a conflict with section 230 of the Communications Decree Act, a federal law that generally exempts online platforms from liability for content moderation decisions. It has become Article 230 the object of resentment on both sides of the political corridor, but for different reasons. Liberals believe the law allows online platforms to leave too much harmful material. Conservative critics, on the other hand, say they stop removing too many things and, worse, allow conservatives to censor them in the form of content moderation.
Despite the merits of these criticisms, the fact is that Article 230 remains in force and, like many federal statutes, explicitly prioritizes any state legislation in conflict with it. Attempts to enforce the Stop Social Media Censorship Act are likely to be a waste of time. Suppose a Florida incumbent candidate repeatedly posts statements that violate Facebook policies against vaccine misinformation or racism and that Facebook bans his account. (For example, say, Laura Loomer, a self-described “Proud Islamophobe” who It was presented to Congress after being banned last year in Florida, Facebook and many other platforms.) If he sues under the new law, he will seek to hold Facebook responsible for the decision to remove the user’s content. Section 230 he says that the platforms are free to “restrict access to or access to the material” in good faith. (Facebook and Twitter declined to say whether they intend to comply with Florida law or fight in court. Youtube did not respond to a request for comment.)
Section 230 is likely to precede other aspects of Florida law that are less controversial than banning inappropriate policies. For example, the Florida Statute requires platforms to establish the rights of users for appropriate processes, including providing specific information on why a specific content has been removed and choosing a rigorous chronological news source without algorithmic commissioning. Both of these ideas have a common-sense appeal among technology reformers across the political spectrum, and their versions are incorporated into proposed federal legislation. But enforcing these provisions in the courts as part of state law would probably follow Article 230, as it would become a platform responsible for hosting or not hosting a portion of user-generated content. The Florida legislature has no power to change that.
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