Elon Musk's X fails to block California's content moderation law

Musk tried and failed to chop that California "Content Moderation" Law that makes big SM companies like (Twitter)X report how they censor posts and how many they censor.

The case tried to say the "Law" violates The 1st Amendment, but the Court says it doesn't!!!!!☢️

WTF there's too many courts upholding wrongly created laws. Must be a Lib effort to overload the courts and ultimately The SCOTUS.

These cases seem to be purposely violating The Constitution to create DRAMA at the higher court levels and The MSM.


Elon Musk's X fails to block California's content moderation law

Elon Musk's X on Thursday failed to block a California state law that requires social media companies to publicly disclose how they moderate certain content on their platforms.

X, formerly known as Twitter, in September sued California to undo the content moderation law, saying the law violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment and California's state constitution.

The law requires social media companies with a sizable gross annual revenue to issue semiannual reports that describe their content moderation practices, and provide data on the number of objectionable posts and how they were addressed.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb in an eight-page decision dismissed the social media company's request.

Clever wording works every time!
Notice this is not a solid statement, opens more questions 😃

"While the reporting requirement does appear to place a substantial compliance burden on social medial companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law," Shubb wrote.

Here's the Musk (X CORP) case ruling:


X Corp. v. Bonta
Filing 36
ORDER signed by Senior Judge William B. Shubb on 12/28/2023 DENYING Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction 18

Here's the California Law....☢️


AB-587 Social media companies: terms of service.(2021-2022)

a reply to: WingDingLuey

Think of it this way. If he's being monitored and regulated, maybe he can justify the way "X" moderates content. On the flip side, this is the US Government that's doing the regulating. Since it's going to be the same people we have now doing the regulting, it could be bad for social media and "X" in particular.

If social media is required by law to report to the government, while not being part of the government, then it seems to create a catch 22 in regards to the first amendment.

Interesting times. . .

One of the first rules of a dictatorial tyrannical regime is to silence all who might disagree.

originally posted by: WingDingLuey
Here's the California Law....☢️


AB-587 Social media companies: terms of service.(2021-2022)

(f) “Terms of service” means a policy or set of policies adopted by a social media company that specifies, at least, the user behavior and activities that are permitted on the internet-based service owned or operated by the social media company, and the user behavior and activities that may subject the user or an item of content to being actioned.
22676. (a) A social media company shall post terms of service for each social media platform owned or operated by the company in a manner reasonably designed to inform all users of the social media platform of the existence and contents of the terms of service.
(b) The terms of service posted pursuant to subdivision (a) shall include all of the following:
(1) Contact information for the purpose of allowing users to ask the social media company questions about the terms of service.
(2) A description of the process that users must follow to flag content, groups, or other users that they believe violate the terms of service, and the social media company’s commitments on response and resolution time.
(3) A list of potential actions the social media company may take against an item of content or a user, including, but not limited to, removal, demonetization, deprioritization, or banning.

I like it. I'm leery of and question why Musk would want to hide his social media corporation's policies of who they silence and why.

If social media companies can collect and sell our data, then we should damn well be able to see their terms and conditions of service.

Just move the headquarters to a different state.

I'm not actually against the law in principle but I am against it's undoubtably selective enforcement to target political opponents of the democratic party.

originally posted by: WingDingLuey
Musk tried and failed to chop that California "Content Moderation" Law that makes big SM companies like (Twitter)X report how they censor posts and how many they censor.

The case tried to say the "Law" violates The 1st Amendment, but the Court says it doesn't!!!!!☢️

WTF there's too many courts upholding wrongly created laws. Must be a Lib effort to overload the courts and ultimately The SCOTUS.

These cases seem to be purposely violating The Constitution to create DRAMA at the higher court levels and The MSM.


Elon Musk's X fails to block California's content moderation law

Elon Musk's X on Thursday failed to block a California state law that requires social media companies to publicly disclose how they moderate certain content on their platforms.

X, formerly known as Twitter, in September sued California to undo the content moderation law, saying the law violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment and California's state constitution.

The law requires social media companies with a sizable gross annual revenue to issue semiannual reports that describe their content moderation practices, and provide data on the number of objectionable posts and how they were addressed.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb in an eight-page decision dismissed the social media company's request.

Clever wording works every time!
Notice this is not a solid statement, opens more questions 😃

"While the reporting requirement does appear to place a substantial compliance burden on social medial companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law," Shubb wrote.

California government loves to push its weight around. I wish the politicians and bureaucrats of California realized how much they are loathed in the rest of the country. Same goes for those on the NE coast down to DC area. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS please! What you think is great for you is considered brain damaged nonsense to the rest of us.

a reply to: WingDingLuey

From your thread . . .

Musk tried and failed to chop that California "Content Moderation" Law that makes big SM companies like (Twitter)X report how they censor posts and how many they censor.
The case tried to say the "Law" violates The 1st Amendment, but the Court says it doesn't!!!!!☢️

WTF there's too many courts upholding wrongly created laws. Must be a Lib effort to overload the courts and ultimately The SCOTUS.

These cases seem to be purposely violating The Constitution to create DRAMA at the higher court levels and The MSM.

The parts in bold seem to be an aspect of the Cloward/Piven strategy, overloading U.S. public welfare to create a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system, but in this case the legal system.

From Wiki:

The Cloward-Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. It is the strategy of forcing political change leading to societal collapse through orchestrated crises.

Good observation, I think you have something there for sure.

originally posted by: randomtangentsrme
If social media is required by law to report to the government, while not being part of the government, then it seems to create a catch 22 in regards to the first amendment.

Interesting times. . .

CATCH22++ 😃 (the "++" is the hearsay and conjecture)

a reply to: Sookiechacha

But who decides what is and isn't "censorable"?? Back to square1. Even the courts are having trouble with prejudice and bias in their own rulings. 🆘

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

Similar conflicts are in the Colorado Ballot case. Big Drama created by a lower court "stubed-toe rigged ruling" in order to elevate the case to the highest Drama Courts (The CO Supreme Court and now the U.S. Supreme Court). ☢️

originally posted by: WingDingLuey
a reply to: Sookiechacha

But who decides what is and isn't "censorable"?? Back to square1. Even the courts are having trouble with prejudice and bias in their own rulings. 🆘

The social media site does.

If you have a rock enthusiast's website, where rockhounds can post and discuss rocks they found, they have the right to censor people talking about the price of tea in China. And if said poster keeps posting spam about the price of tea in China, the rock enthusiast's website moderators have a right to censor and even ban that poster.

But why would a rock enthusiast's website managers want to hide that policy?

Here, on ATS, the T&Cs are posted. The MODS have a lot of leeway in interpreting them, but when they censor a post, they say why, like it's off-topic, or a manners violation, or political trolling. That's fair, right?

I remember when Jack and his cronies were running Twitter, censoring conservatives, right wingers, vax truthers, and anybody not toeing the progressive narrative.
They kept saying oops, we banned by mistake. The mistakes were always against the right.
The left defended them vigorously and said “it’s their website, they can do anything they want, cry harder”.
Now that they no longer control Twitter, it’s very interesting to see the left and their same vigor being used to go after Twitter.
The government no longer has their big dumb censorship finger on the buttons, and that frightens them.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

But the CA law implies they (the gov) could question and even possibly prosecute or sue if they (the gov) disagrees with what was not censored. That's the 1st Amendment issue.

a reply to: WingDingLuey

But the CA law implies they (the gov) could question and even possibly prosecute or sue if they (the gov) disagrees with what was not censored

I'm not seeing that in the law. Can you cite that portion, please.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
a reply to: WingDingLuey

But the CA law implies they (the gov) could question and even possibly prosecute or sue if they (the gov) disagrees with what was not censored

I'm not seeing that in the law. Can you cite that portion, please.

Implications:

This bill would also require the social media company to submit reports, as specified, starting no later than January 1, 2024, to the Attorney General. The bill would specify the information required by the reports, including, but not limited to, the current version of the terms of service for each social media platform owned or operated by the company, specified categories of content and what policies the social media company has for that platform to address that content, and data related to violations of the terms of service for each platform. The bill would require the Attorney General to make all terms of service reports submitted pursuant to those provisions available to the public in a searchable repository on its official internet website.
The bill would state the intent of the Legislature that a social media company that violates the above provisions shall be subject to meaningful remedies sufficient to induce compliance with these provisions, and would specify civil penalties that a company shall be liable for if the bill’s provisions are violated, and how the Attorney General or a city attorney may bring an action against violators. The bill would specify that the duties, obligations, remedies, and penalties imposed by the bill are cumulative to existing law.

Nowhere in the law are definitions

-22677-
(3) A statement of whether the current version of the terms of service defines each of the following categories of content, and, if so, the definitions of those categories, including any subcategories:
(A) Hate speech or racism.
(B) Extremism or radicalization.
(C) Disinformation or misinformation.
(D) Harassment.
(E) Foreign political interference.

The law text

a reply to: WingDingLuey

Nowhere in the law are definitions

Right, the law doesn't provide or require definitions.

(3) A statement of whether the current version of the terms of service defines each of the following categories of content, and, if so, the definitions of those categories, including any subcategories:
(A) Hate speech or racism.
(B) Extremism or radicalization.
(C) Disinformation or misinformation.
(D) Harassment.
(E) Foreign political interference.

But, if the site does provide definitions in their Terms of Service, those definitions need to be provided in the report.

I'm still not seeing anything in this law that says anything about how State could question and even possibly prosecute or sue if they (the gov) disagrees with what was not censored. It's not even there, in the implications that you've linked.