SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — Social media giant X Corp. sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Friday, claiming a state law passed last year violates its First Amendment rights.
Assembly Bill 587, passed in September 2022, requires large social media companies to submit semi-annual reports to the attorney general that include how it defines and moderates hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference, among other requirements.
Social media companies must also include information about the actions they take to moderate those categories.
San Francisco-based X Corp., previously called Twitter and headed by Elon Musk, said in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, that this violates the First Amendment and the state constitution because it forces social media companies like it to engage in speech against its wishes. It also interferes with constitutionally protected editorial judgments of those companies, pressing them to take action against speech the state opposes.
Assembly Bill 587 — penned by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, a San Fernando Valley Democrat — was praised by Governor Gavin Newsom in a bill-signing announcement. Newsom said that Californians deserve to know how social media platforms impact public discourse, and that the bill brings needed transparency and accountability.
X Corp. claimed the true purpose of the bill is to “eliminate” certain constitutionally protected content the government decides is problematic.
“The legislative record is crystal clear that one of the main purposes of AB 587 — if not the main purpose — is to pressure social media companies to eliminate or minimize content that the government has deemed objectionable,” X Corp. wrote.
The reports detailing content moderation decisions can also prove costly. X Corp. wrote that social media companies can face fines of up to $15,000 per violation, per day, if compliance isn’t in “reasonable, good faith” — a term that the company said is not defined.
X Corp. also said that the reports it must file with the attorney general force social media companies to stake out positions publicly on politically charged and controversial issues. According to X. Corp, being forced to use the government’s politically charged terms is a form of unconstitutional compelled speech.
The First Amendment gives X Corp. the right to speak freely or not at all, the company wrote.
Additionally, the company claimed, moderating controversial content is inherently political and will lead to questions over if too much or too little moderation is occurring.
X Corp. listed a few examples, noting that some people see misgendering someone as hate speech and harassment. However, others say that forcing someone to call a transgender person by their preferred pronouns violates their right to their deeply held beliefs.
In another example cited by X Corp., in March 2020 some people said it was disinformation to claim the Covid-19 virus came from a lab in Wuhan, China. Others insisted that restricting such statements was censorship.
“As these examples make clear, AB 587 focuses on the most controversial and politically-charged categories of content moderation,” X Corp. wrote. “It forces social media companies to speak publicly and take a position on these controversial topics, notwithstanding that doing so will almost always result in public criticism from one political group or another.”
Gabriel, AB 587’s author, said in a Friday statement that it took almost two years to pass the bill under intense opposition from large social media companies. However, it received bipartisan support after grassroots lobbying by over 80 civil rights and civic groups.
“Assembly Bill 587 is a pure transparency measure that simply requires companies to be upfront about if and how they are moderating content. It in no way requires any specific content moderation policies — which is why it passed with strong, bipartisan support,” Gabriel said. “If Twitter has nothing to hide, then they should have no objection to this bill.”
An inquiry to Twitter’s press email resulted in an automatic reply: “Busy now, please check back later.”
Bonta’s office could not be reached by press time.
X Corp. asks in its suit for a jury trial, along with a declaration that AB 587 violates the First Amendment and the state constitution and that it violates the dormant commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The company also asks that civil penalties assessed under AB 587 become null and void and that a permanent injunction stop Bonta from enforcing AB 587 against X Corp.
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