14 ms·

X sues Calif. to avoid revealing how it makes “controversial” content decisions

183 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

isaacfrond 3y ago
In light of the recent ruling by the Fifth Circuit that the White House overstepped 1st Amendment on social media [0], I suppose Musk has a good case. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/business/appeals-court-first-amendment-social-media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/business/appeals-court-fi...
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  How is the state of California related to the WH? I don't understand why anyone would downvote this. Can't people ask questions these days? Especially questions that prompt significant discussions and clear the climate and misconceptions some of us have?
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    They are both under the jurisdiction of the US federal court system. Something applying to the white house means it applies to individual states as well.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      Fifth circuit Court doesn't have jurisdiction over California.
      - heywhatupboys 3y ago
        No, but circuit courts have long established precedence, especially in matters
        jcranmer 3y ago
        Literally not in this case. Circuit courts establish binding precedence in their circuit, but not elsewhere. Out-of-circuit opinions can be used for persuasive evidence, but there is absolutely nothing that requires the 9th Circuit (which includes California) to listen to what the 5th Circuit says. Especially when the 5th Circuit is disagreeing with every other circuit to have considered the matter. [I haven't read the opinion in this case to know what it's asserting, but I do know that every opinion I did read on whether or not the government urged COVID-19 moderation qualified as unconstitutional state action concluded that the plaintiffs hadn't met their showing that it did.]
    - ericmay 3y ago
      I'm not sure that is necessarily true, but the essence of your point I think stands which is that it's likely that based on past outcomes that California could face a similar result as the case you are referring to.
      - parineum 3y ago
        > I'm not sure that is necessarily true If the case was decided on 1st amendment grounds, it's absolutely true.
    - ofjcihen 3y ago
      Not a lawyer but if that’s the case, could California say “Fine, but Twitter can no longer do business in California”? Edit: not necessarily saying they should, I’m just wondering if they can. Edit 2: Looks like the most they could do is make it harder for social media companies in general to do business. If they were perceived as targeting Twitter then they could have grounds to sue. Based on 20 minutes of reading so grain of salt applies.
  - PM_me_your_math 3y ago
    [dead]
  - infamouscow 3y ago
    The bill of rights is a list of restrictions on the government i.e., laws the governments must follow.
    - delfinom 3y ago
      The California law only mandates reporting how decisions are made, it does not do anything to how the company makes those decisions. If companies can now argue that complying with a law is against free speech, they can literally ignore all laws.
    - Zigurd 3y ago
      Commercial speech is regulated. That might not make a lot of sense in a time when "money is speech." But that's not a problem the people created.
      - perihelions 3y ago
        If Twitter solicits you to purchase Twitter Blue, that's Commercial Speech. If Twitter bans your account for praising Hitler, that's [Twitter exercising] political speech: Twitter would be protected by the First Amendment. The mere fact Twitter is a commercial, monetized service doesn't trigger a Twitter-wide First Amendment exception—any more than, say, the New York Times being a for-profit corporation opens the door for the feds to censor its political columns. Even if they're behind a paywall. Commercial Speech is a narrow carve-out for "advertisements and solicitations". It's not applicable to Twitter moderation.
        Zigurd 3y ago
        There is a good argument that company policies about product use is commercial speech. "Here take this opioid, we have funded studies that say it won't hurt you" got regulated pretty hard. "We think the 'woke mind virus' is worse than capital-F Fascism and will moderate that way" is very much about Twitter's product.
        perihelions 3y ago
  - deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- nimbius 3y ago
  these are two completely separate cases. The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content.” What California wants is clarification and explanation of the moderation process as it applies to X. a product disclosure like this is common in nearly every other consumer product in the US. Prop 65 for example routinely mandates this sort of disclosure for lead or cadmium content in a product. The reason musk specifically does not want to disclose this information is because the moderators were all sacked a year ago...i think California knows this. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-outsourced-content-moderators/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-outso...
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    Last I checked, content moderation can’t cause cancer or birth defects.
    - DanHulton 3y ago
      Yes, but if you're not being pedantic for the sake of scoring points, all the aforementioned things are capable of causing significant harm if mishandled, so it's still quite relevant.
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        What is the significant harm caused by mishandled content moderation? ... for that matter, what does it mean for content moderation to be "mishandled?"
        cratermoon 3y ago
        > What is the significant harm Stochastic terrorism.
lalaland1125 3y ago
X should lose here. Governments have a long-standing right to force companies to disclose information that is important to consumers.
- Bjartr 3y ago
  I agree, this seems fairly cut and dry. People are jumping past the law as written to downstream actions that become feasible for the state if the law exists. This required reporting isn't the problem to attack though, it's those downstream actions. Now perhaps (probably) there should be a mechanism in place to stop the gov't from even getting this far, but, AFAIK, such a mechanism does not yet exist and it's certainly not the first amendment.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Is there precedent for the government requiring traditional newspapers to submit reports like this explaining their editorial processes and priorities?
  - EdSchouten 3y ago
    Regardless of what the answer to your question is, X is not a newspaper.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      In principle they have the same constitutional rights as newspapers. Unless a double standard is being applied "because computers", which is what I am teasing out. The courts are better about upholding the First Amendment when there is ink being put on paper, because that's something which is well established and understood. As soon as computers get involved, people get this idea that old rules no longer apply "because computers". This is why the book PGP Source Code and Internals was published; because ink on paper makes the matter clear cut.
      - rewmie 3y ago
        > In principle they have the same constitutional rights as newspapers. This sort of pointless truism means nothing at all. The crux of the matter boils down to the common carrier status, and whether companies can be held liable for the content being handled through their service. If a social media company editorializes the content it distributes, it's liable for each and any consequence of distributing it. Simple as that.
r721 3y ago
Mike Masnick's opinion: >Elon Musk Files Really Strong 1st Amendment Challenge To California’s Terrible Social Media ‘Transparency’ Law https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/08/elon-musk-files-really-strong-1st-amendment-challenge-to-californias-terrible-social-media-transparency-law/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/08/elon-musk-files-really-s...
- digging 3y ago
  I don't know who Masnick is but the loaded headline tells me I shouldn't care. So, should I?
  - r721 3y ago
    Tech/legal blogger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techdirt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techdirt https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/technology/mike-masnick-techdirt-internet-future.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/technology/mike-masnick-t... He's usually quite critical of Musk, so it's a newsworthy thing that he supported him in this case.
  - DashAnimal 3y ago
    Mike Masnick is probably one of the most critical people of Elon. You've may have read one of his articles prior, perhaps in the early days when Elon bought Twitter. His analysis of Elon's obligations to purchase Twitter, criticism of Elon's approach to content moderation (and lack of understanding), it's all been pretty good and legally sound. The fact that he is praising Elon here says something.
    - freejazz 3y ago
      Whether or not he's critical of Elon has no bearing on his legal analysis
      - MichaelDickens 3y ago
        In theory, where people are perfect reasoners, it doesn't. Realistically, people tend to form opinions that fit the narratives they want. If someone who normally takes one side of a politicized issue instead takes the other side, that suggests that the case for the other side is particularly compelling because it compelled this person to switch sides.
nemo44x 3y ago
I didn't realize how draconian and big brother-ish the law was: > AB 587 passed in September 2022, requiring social media platforms to submit a "terms of service report" semi-annually to California's attorney general, providing "a detailed description of content moderation practices used" and "information about whether, and if so how, the social media company defines and moderates" hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference. Under the law, social media platforms must also provide information and statistics on any content moderation actions taken in those categories. This is quite literally thought police. You literally have to send the state's lawyers details on how you moderate content to ensure it complies with whatever arbitrary thing the state believes in at the time. This is clearly not constitutional and the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated.
- two_handfuls 3y ago
  > the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated. Red herring. It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    Reporting stats is usually step 1 to regulating those things... It won't be long before laws say things like "99% of takedowns must occur within 1 hour of a report being made" or "No more than 1% of users may see content which is later taken down on any given day, otherwise we will fine you for insufficient moderation" That, combined with a court making a few decisions on moderation (months after the fact), means that the only way way for a platform to make sure that < 1% of users see content taken down by a court later is to remove all except the safest content right away before anyone sees it. End result: Self policing to only uncontroversial boring stuff.
    - mingus88 3y ago
      Slippery slope fallacy
hirundo 3y ago
They're required to spell out their moderation policy and provide details on how it's enforced, but the law does not appear to put constraints on the policy. So it would seem to be consistent with the law to have a policy like We moderate depending on our values and feelings as we experience them at the time, and we do not strive for consistency in these judgments and they may change depending on how well our moderators have slept the night before or how the air pressure affects their sinusitus. That would seem to comply with the law while enabling the social network to maintain maximum flexibility.
- orra 3y ago
  That's clearly not a real policy. You can't trick a court with such obvious deception. In particular, moderators have bosses, and nobody can believe moderators can do what the hell they want without their manager having a say. > while enabling the social network to maintain maximum flexibility. In other words, giving the employees absolute discretion isn't normally what you would consider giving the company (owners/directors) flexibility.
  - adrr 3y ago
    That’s why they are fighting it. They don’t want to put that Musk is the moderation policy.
    - bluescrn 3y ago
      'It's a private company, they can ban/block/censor whoever/whatever they want' Pre-Musk, wasn't that always the standard standard response to criticism of activism-driven social media censorship?
      - tzs 3y ago
        So? That's still the standard response. All this bill is doing is saying that the company has to state what their rules for this are.
gustavus 3y ago
So the law they are suing over is here https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB587/id/2599787 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB587/id/2599787 I think the part that they probably have issue with is the "(5) (A) Information on content that was flagged by the social media company as content belonging to any of the categories described in paragraph (3), including all of the following: (i) The total number of flagged items of content. (ii) The total number of actioned items of content. (iii) The total number of actioned items of content that resulted in action taken by the social media company against the user or group of users responsible for the content. (iv) The total number of actioned items of content that were removed, demonetized, or deprioritized by the social media company. (v) The number of times actioned items of content were viewed by users. (vi) The number of times actioned items of content were shared, and the number of users that viewed the content before it was actioned. (vii) The number of times users appealed social media company actions taken on that platform and the number of reversals of social media company actions on appeal disaggregated by each type of action. (B) All information required by subparagraph (A) shall be disaggregated into the following categories: (i) The category of content, including any relevant categories described in paragraph (3). (ii) The type of content, including, but not limited to, posts, comments, messages, profiles of users, or groups of users. (iii) The type of media of the content, including, but not limited to, text, images, and videos. (iv) How the content was flagged, including, but not limited to, flagged by company employees or contractors, flagged by artificial intelligence software, flagged by community moderators, flagged by civil society partners, and flagged by users. (v) How the content was actioned, including, but not limited to, actioned by company employees or contractors, actioned by artificial intelligence software, actioned by community moderators, actioned by civil society partners, and actioned by users." Combined with this section of the bill "(b) Actions for relief pursuant to this chapter shall be prosecuted exclusively in a court of competent jurisdiction by the Attorney General or a district attorney or by a county counsel authorized by agreement with the district attorney in actions involving violation of a county ordinance, or by a city attorney of a city having a population in excess of 750,000, or by a city attorney in a city and county or, with the consent of the district attorney, by a city prosecutor in a city having a full-time city prosecutor in the name of the people of the State of California upon their own complaint or upon the complaint of a board, officer, person, corporation, or association. (c) If an action pursuant to this section is brought by the Attorney General, one-half of the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered, and one-half to the General Fund. If the action is brought by a district attorney or county counsel, the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered. If the action is brought by a city attorney or city prosecutor, one-half of the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the city in which the judgment was entered, and one-half to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered." Basically the law requires a full disclosure of all content moderation decisions and explicitly why they were made, and then gives incentive for various city DAs to bring suit by promising them a 50% cut of whatever money is made in the lawsuit.
a2xd94 3y ago
> "In its complaint, X Corp. argued that AB 587 violates the First Amendment..." How in the hell can a corporation claim that it has free speech? While we're at it, maybe we should also find corporations liable for damages done on the communities they serve, with the chief executives being the proxy humans for those damages, including murder (ahem chemical, oil companies)? That would be highly satisfactory.
- deleted 3y ago
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- shadowgovt 3y ago
  > How in the hell can a corporation claim that it has free speech? Barring superseding reasons to the contrary, in general US legal structure ascribes to corporations the same rights ascribed to individuals. This is a new construct (about 1970s) but it is the law of the land as interpreted by the Courts. https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speech-for-corporations.html https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec...
- postingawayonhn 3y ago
  Corporations are just collections of people working together. Why would they not have freedom of speech?
  - explaininjs 3y ago
    Freedom of speech should only be given to those people and/or collections of people the parent already agrees with, of course. And only the good guys should have guns (as determined by an Expert’s “mental health” assessment). And of course the state is free to seize funds from criminals. Oh and while “our guys” are in federal power we’d better create a bunch of new rules and regulations, that way we can coerce all those states filled with idiots into our hightened moral ground.
  - avmich 3y ago
    There is a difference - collection of people is not a person, at least not for all cases.
electrondood 3y ago
Wasn't the entire point of the Matt Taibbi "Twitter files" attempt at a news story to expose exactly this, except slanted to make it look like a big liberal conspiracy rather than the good faith operation of a social media platform? Musk made big loud statements about free speech, etc. and then ended up arriving back at the status quo. Turns out there never was a problem to begin with, and you actually need the TOS (you know, the reason Babylon Bee, Jordan Peterson, and Trump were correctly banned) because a toxic platform drives away users and advertisers.
- the_optimist 3y ago
  The US Federal government, Justice Department, and FBI were involved in censorship campaigns targeting specific individuals. You’re omitting this part.
  - drcongo 3y ago
    They still are. Why do you think that has changed? Musk has complied with more demands from government since taking over than the previous leadership did. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfilling-more-government-censorship-requests-under-musk https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfillin...
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    The US Federal government, Justice Department, and FBI are currently involved in every substantial American business. Did Matt think he was scooping Snowden 9 years after the fact?
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    To be precise, 3 Republican appointed Federalist Society judges ruled the Biden administration "likely violated" the First Amendment. The judiciary has been politicized to the point that we can't pretend these people are nonpartisan anymore. They're politicians in robes with a political agenda.
    - doitLP 3y ago
giantg2 3y ago
I guess they don't want to reveal the complaint box is really a shredder feed hopper.
- deleted 3y ago
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supermatt 3y ago
Easily resolved: Remind X that they are responsible for all content published on their platform. You cant expect to have immunity under section 230 if you arent going to provide "good samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material. The exemption is what has allowed the internet to become what it has today. Lawmakers have already threatened to change this in the past. I'd much rather they see the current law already handles bad actors than for them to introduce something "new".
- ch4s3 3y ago
  That isn’t the law works. And 230 aside, they do have speech rights. The law protects against the government compelling speech. * edit to fix typo
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - supermatt 3y ago
    > That isn’t the law works. That is the actual law: https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt > Thermale protects against the government compelling speech. What compelled speech?
    - tzs 3y ago
      That is probably the most useless yet technically correct link anyone has ever given here, so congratulations on that. :-) For those who don't want to try to find in that nearly 50000 word bill that is a massive mix of additions and diffs updating a large part of telecommunication law, here is a link to where the small section that is relevant to this discussion ended up in codified in the US code [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 Clarification: I am not saying that their interpretation of Section 230 is correct. I am just saying that the link they provided to the text of Section 230 is in fact a link to the text of Section 230.
bastard_op 3y ago
[flagged]
- jerf 3y ago
  X's moderation job is immensely larger than Musk's ego. And yes, I know it's tempting to make the obvious snarky variations on "nuh-uh, his ego is just that large, hurr hurr hurr", but, no, I'm serious, it's plural orders of magnitude larger. Social media networks have entire content moderation regimes in countries Musk does not care about or speak the language of. It's huge. It's arguably the defining moat for these companies. This employs an army of people both directly doing the content management and writing the intent analysis bots and all sorts of people and I'd guestimate, let's see, try to get the orders of magnitude approximately correct here so this is not just a random number of zeros, 0.0000000001% of moderation decisions made somewhere in X are a direct reflection of Musk's ego.
jmyeet 3y ago
[flagged]
- the_optimist 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Capricorn2481 3y ago
    That's a pretty weak response. "Yeah he's playing favorites and oppressing one political side, but you're on that side so you're biased when you call it out"
    - the_optimist 3y ago
      You’re paraphrasing incorrectly. The portrayal of the X/twitter account as distributing rather than opposing CSAM was intentionally misleading and weaponized. There’s no evidence of bias at twitter from the response.
- stainablesteel 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    Could you please stop using HN for ideological battle? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for—regardless of what you're for or against. Your account has been doing this repeatedly and that's not what HN is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- atlantic 3y ago
  > Since Elon's acquisition, there has been a massive increase in hate speech on Twitter while Musk bans journalists. What's hate speech? Serious question. Most practical uses coincide with "opinions that hurt my feelings". Can you define it objectively?
reset2023 3y ago
[flagged]
charles_f 3y ago
> X Corp. argued that AB 587 violates the First Amendment by compelling "companies like X Corp. to engage in speech against their will" and "impermissibly" interfering "with the constitutionally protected editorial judgments of companies." Ok genuine question there: are companies considered the same as people when it comes to US Constitution? Does a company have free speech and the right to bear arms?
- rgbrenner 3y ago
  Courts have said: Companies are just groups of people. So a person, employed by Twitter, has the same free speech rights as anyone else. If you force a company to take certain actions, a person in the company must perform that action... and forcing that person to take certain actions may be a violation of that person's rights.
  - rhyme-boss 3y ago
    That seems logically incoherent (for a court to say). An individual can leave a company if they don't want to take those actions.
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      I think it would be more logically incoherent if a group of people magically lost their rights because they got together to make a company.
      - rhyme-boss 3y ago
        It's a voluntary arrangement that they can leave. Certain activities come with responsibilities and restrictions, *in the interest of protecting everyone else's rights.
        whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
        No our constitutional rights are not predicated on our actions or speech having no impact on society. On the contrary our rights are so that we may impact society as we see fit. This is such a dangerous line of thought I almost don’t believe it. Users original comment mentioned impact on society.
charles_f 3y ago
Not that I am a particular fan of Twitter, and I think forcing some transparency per how you moderate content is quite a good idea - but doing that at a state level is annoying. Every nation already has its own rules and laws, which quite makes sense for physical goods, but is much harder to track for software. The US should at least have one unified rule when it comes to these topics. I understand it's not really the way legislation is usually determined, but look at GDPR: even Europe (which is not a country) managed to do it in a centralized way.
- kjksf 3y ago
  This is actually one of Twitter legal arguments against this law: section 230 explicitly gives companies ability to moderate user submitted content as they please. By putting additional restrictions on moderation activities (the requirement to report to government how they are moderating) this state law contradicts the federal law and the way things work, federal law wins. We will have to wait to see if the judge / juries agree with this argument, but that's one of the reasons Twitter believes this law should be eliminated.
  - candybar 3y ago
    This is legally nonsensical - nothing about Section 230 precludes any further restriction on moderation by another entity. Section 230 is and has always been about the act of moderation not specifically creating liability for the carrier of user-generated content - nothing about Section 230 grants the publisher any specific right not to be subject to further moderation at another level. The first amendment angle is a stronger argument, but unfortunately for X, it's also extremely weak and would require overriding decades of precedence and essentially create a crisis - there are far more onerous regulations in place that are still relied upon in a way that having them constitutionally challenged would be extremely damaging.
- candybar 3y ago
  I think this is a good take - the legal theories mentioned in this thread (1st amendment, Section 230) seem mostly baseless, but this doesn't seem like appropriate legislation at the state-level either way. I don't know enough about the commerce clause restrictions on state regulations, but I do wonder if that comes into play given that moderation policies will almost always have interstate and international commerce implications.
justapassenger 3y ago
[flagged]
- dofof 3y ago
  [flagged]
perihelions 3y ago
65 additional comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37442998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37442998 ("X challenges California’s new transparency law as unconstitutional (techcrunch.com)")
fwungy 3y ago
X: We are a common carrier Government: You must censor X: OK, we'll remove content deemed highly offensive Government: You're not a common carrier now.
- deleted 3y ago
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perihelions 3y ago
The Washington Post quoted an expert as saying this law, A.B. 587, is "likely to be struck down as unconstitutional". This back in 2022 when the law passed—before Elon Musk attached himself to this story and polarized everyone. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/13/california-social-network-transparency/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/13/califor... ("New California law likely to set off fight over social media moderation")
- hnburnsy 3y ago
  Might be interesting to see if WaPo posts an article that slants in favor of the bill now that Musk is against it. That article was quite neutral, IMO.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Newspapers pretty regularly have articles on multiple sides of an issue, though sometimes one viewpoint is relegated to the opinion section. Crucially however, "this law is unconstitutional for reason Q" does not mean that "Musk says making their business codify their moderation is against free speech" is correct.
LightBug1 3y ago
That people are still using that cesspit of a website, even after all this nonsense, is what astounds me ... After all the free speech, moderation, and etc etc etc promises made ... After appointing an empty-chair CEO ... After everything It amazes me ...
- deleted 3y ago
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kibwen 3y ago
Note: "X" refers to Twitter, rather than a generic placeholder.
lovecg 3y ago
For people saying, “oh this is just a reporting requirement and fear mongering over this law is a slippery-slope fallacy”: it would be, except the people behind the law have been repeatedly documented as wanting to jump headfirst down this slippery slope: > if social media companies are forced to disclose what they do in this regard [i.e., how they moderate online content], it may pressure them to become better corporate citizens by doing more to eliminate hate speech and disinformation. > [T]he Legislature also considered that, by requiring greater transparency about platforms’ content-moderation rules and decisions, AB 587 may result in public pressure on social media companies to ‘become better corporate citizens by doing more to eliminate hate speech and disinformation’ on their platforms. . . . This, too, is a substantial state interest. > important first step in protecting our democracy from the dangerously divisive content that has become all too common on social media. Note that “hate speech” and “disinformation” are not legal concepts and both include various protected speech. This is your government arguing in the open how this law in fact is a great first step towards restricting some of this protected speech.
- PathOfEclipse 3y ago
  I'm continually amazed how much people fall for language manipulation."Hate speech" is almost always speech the powerful want silenced. And, what kind of speech do the powerful censor? * The truth whenever it is inconvenient to them * speech that threatens their power * speech that hampers their agendas Just about everyone who decries "hate speech" is actually perfectly fine with it, as long as it is directed towards the people they themselves hate. Here is one example: https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1523476586330136576 https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1523476586330136576 The offender, Caroline Reilly, called for literal genocide on Twitter, and was never censored! You can't get more hateful than that. I wish I knew how to wake people up to the fact that "hate speech" laws are nothing but a power grab for the already-powerful.
declan_roberts 3y ago
All X has to do is make controversial content decisions the same way the other social media companies do: at the behest of our intelligence agencies and opaque government-funded "partners"!
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  [flagged]
- rnk 3y ago
  I can't tell if you are kidding in thinking that's what has been happening. The twitter files turned out to be a kind of huge exaggeration. The govt wasn't really controlling twitter, there was a big exaggeration of what happened.
  - Karunamon 3y ago
    It was enough control for a judge to outright bar a number of government agencies and people from communicating with any social media company on moderation matters, and then another judge to uphold that bar.
    - camdat 3y ago
      The requirements for an injunction are much lower than an actual ruling. The party must just show that they have a possibility of winning the case and that granting temporary relief will not cause additional harm to the plaintiff. To use that as proof that the defendant will win is ridiculous.
      - Karunamon 3y ago
        a possibility of winning the case The actual term used is "likely to prevail". Injunctions are not handed out willy-nilly, and the actual wording in the injunction should give you pause: "The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government" Nobody said anything about "proof that the defendant will win". I said said that several judges have found evidence of unconstitutional pressure being applied. Please do not misrepresent a plain statement of fact.
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
From the definition in the bill how a "Social media platform" is defined has no requirement to userbase, so wouldn't every Mastodon server and small self hosted message board have to submit to this too or face fines? https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB587 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
- hnburnsy 3y ago
  >22680. This chapter shall not apply to a social media company that generated less than one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) in gross revenue during the preceding calendar year.
  - jmyeet 3y ago
    So, before too long even Twitter won’t be affected.
  - hnburnsy 3y ago
    I think that this would be this list, not sure about jurisdiction... Reddit Pinterest Snap TikTok X LinkedIn WeChat Youtube Meta
    - hnburnsy 3y ago
      Twitch?
      - faeranne 3y ago
        I don't think Twitch fits the other definitions, 22675(e)(2)(b) probably could be argued to not fit with Twitch.
- faeranne 3y ago
  I was about to type up a message about how this affects private services too, buuuuut... section 22680 pretty summarily removes self hosted instances. I doubt any of them are making $100,000,000 profit per year.
coding123 3y ago
I have a feeling Elon is working with people in IT to "block" CA from accessing the Twitter and X domain names. - Not implement it juuuuust yet, but probably a 2 day test coming for sure.
hnburnsy 3y ago
This feels like the NSA, hey citizens we aren't capturing the content of your phone calls, just the metadata around your phone calls.
lovecg 3y ago
Text of the law: > (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. I like to imagine what this would look like if the other side was in charge. Say Russia or Florida for that matter. (In case of Russia, one doesn’t have to imagine). > (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) LGBT propaganda. (B) Woke ideology. (C) Harassment of religious freedoms. Not so hard to see how complying with this law would be compelled speech, is it now? Whether one says yes or no, you’re implicitly agreeing that these categories are real things. You can’t quite say “I disagree with the law as written” unless you sue, which is what’s happening here.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > you’re implicitly agreeing that these categories are real things You have this the wrong way around: these things have legal definitions in both state and federal law, and your "agreement" is not a mandatory condition. Put another way: the state of California is not interested in whether you think hate speech is real. The suit doesn't hinge on that at all; it hinges on whether the government can compel corporate speech that amounts to a disclosure of internal policies. Which it can, for the same reason that the government can compel businesses to do their taxes, file permits, and disclose their political contributions.
  - lovecg 3y ago
    This seems to be at least part of the complaint if I’m reading it right: > AB 587 thus mandates X Corp. to speak about sensitive, controversial topics about which it does not wish to speak in the hopes of pressuring X Corp. to limit constitutionally-protected content on its platform that the State apparently finds objectionable or undesirable. This violates the free speech rights granted to X Corp. under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 2, of the California Constitution. As for the precedent, > Which it can, for the same reason that the government can compel businesses to do their taxes, file permits, and disclose their political contributions. My understanding is that what can be compelled is pretty limited (e.g. facts in advertising, ingredients, etc.), it’s not a blanket precedent for the state to ask you to produce anything at any time.
dahwolf 3y ago
No matter where you stand, I think it's good that this is happening. The CA law might be overreaching whilst Twitter might be too lax. Hopefully a head-to-head brings clarity on an important topic. With the CA law, EU regulation, app store policies and the like, a pretty powerful net is cast around the topic of speech. Specifically about speech that is technically legal yet considered unwelcome. It's tempting to let judgement be clouded by a hate for Musk, but it's a topic worthy to think about more deeply beyond just X. It's also revealing how this legislation only targets Big Tech. From a pragmatic point of view, this makes total sense. But it also shows that this legislation isn't based on first principles. It's a panicky patch on an open wound, not the definitive say on free speech.

183 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

In light of the recent ruling by the Fifth Circuit that the White House overstepped 1st Amendment on social media [0], I suppose Musk has a good case. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/business/appeals-court-first-amendment-social-media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/business/appeals-court-fi...

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
How is the state of California related to the WH? I don't understand why anyone would downvote this. Can't people ask questions these days? Especially questions that prompt significant discussions and clear the climate and misconceptions some of us have?
- edgyquant 3y ago
  They are both under the jurisdiction of the US federal court system. Something applying to the white house means it applies to individual states as well.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    Fifth circuit Court doesn't have jurisdiction over California.
    - heywhatupboys 3y ago
      No, but circuit courts have long established precedence, especially in matters
      - jcranmer 3y ago
        Literally not in this case. Circuit courts establish binding precedence in their circuit, but not elsewhere. Out-of-circuit opinions can be used for persuasive evidence, but there is absolutely nothing that requires the 9th Circuit (which includes California) to listen to what the 5th Circuit says. Especially when the 5th Circuit is disagreeing with every other circuit to have considered the matter. [I haven't read the opinion in this case to know what it's asserting, but I do know that every opinion I did read on whether or not the government urged COVID-19 moderation qualified as unconstitutional state action concluded that the plaintiffs hadn't met their showing that it did.]
  - ericmay 3y ago
    I'm not sure that is necessarily true, but the essence of your point I think stands which is that it's likely that based on past outcomes that California could face a similar result as the case you are referring to.
    - parineum 3y ago
      > I'm not sure that is necessarily true If the case was decided on 1st amendment grounds, it's absolutely true.
  - ofjcihen 3y ago
    Not a lawyer but if that’s the case, could California say “Fine, but Twitter can no longer do business in California”? Edit: not necessarily saying they should, I’m just wondering if they can. Edit 2: Looks like the most they could do is make it harder for social media companies in general to do business. If they were perceived as targeting Twitter then they could have grounds to sue. Based on 20 minutes of reading so grain of salt applies.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago
  [dead]
- infamouscow 3y ago
  The bill of rights is a list of restrictions on the government i.e., laws the governments must follow.
  - delfinom 3y ago
    The California law only mandates reporting how decisions are made, it does not do anything to how the company makes those decisions. If companies can now argue that complying with a law is against free speech, they can literally ignore all laws.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    Commercial speech is regulated. That might not make a lot of sense in a time when "money is speech." But that's not a problem the people created.
    - perihelions 3y ago
      If Twitter solicits you to purchase Twitter Blue, that's Commercial Speech. If Twitter bans your account for praising Hitler, that's [Twitter exercising] political speech: Twitter would be protected by the First Amendment. The mere fact Twitter is a commercial, monetized service doesn't trigger a Twitter-wide First Amendment exception—any more than, say, the New York Times being a for-profit corporation opens the door for the feds to censor its political columns. Even if they're behind a paywall. Commercial Speech is a narrow carve-out for "advertisements and solicitations". It's not applicable to Twitter moderation.
      - Zigurd 3y ago
        There is a good argument that company policies about product use is commercial speech. "Here take this opioid, we have funded studies that say it won't hurt you" got regulated pretty hard. "We think the 'woke mind virus' is worse than capital-F Fascism and will moderate that way" is very much about Twitter's product.
        perihelions 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
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nimbius 3y ago
these are two completely separate cases. The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content.” What California wants is clarification and explanation of the moderation process as it applies to X. a product disclosure like this is common in nearly every other consumer product in the US. Prop 65 for example routinely mandates this sort of disclosure for lead or cadmium content in a product. The reason musk specifically does not want to disclose this information is because the moderators were all sacked a year ago...i think California knows this. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-outsourced-content-moderators/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-outso...
- jonhohle 3y ago
  Last I checked, content moderation can’t cause cancer or birth defects.
  - DanHulton 3y ago
    Yes, but if you're not being pedantic for the sake of scoring points, all the aforementioned things are capable of causing significant harm if mishandled, so it's still quite relevant.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      What is the significant harm caused by mishandled content moderation? ... for that matter, what does it mean for content moderation to be "mishandled?"
      - cratermoon 3y ago
        > What is the significant harm Stochastic terrorism.

lalaland1125 3y ago

X should lose here. Governments have a long-standing right to force companies to disclose information that is important to consumers.

Bjartr 3y ago
I agree, this seems fairly cut and dry. People are jumping past the law as written to downstream actions that become feasible for the state if the law exists. This required reporting isn't the problem to attack though, it's those downstream actions. Now perhaps (probably) there should be a mechanism in place to stop the gov't from even getting this far, but, AFAIK, such a mechanism does not yet exist and it's certainly not the first amendment.
mcpackieh 3y ago
Is there precedent for the government requiring traditional newspapers to submit reports like this explaining their editorial processes and priorities?
- EdSchouten 3y ago
  Regardless of what the answer to your question is, X is not a newspaper.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    In principle they have the same constitutional rights as newspapers. Unless a double standard is being applied "because computers", which is what I am teasing out. The courts are better about upholding the First Amendment when there is ink being put on paper, because that's something which is well established and understood. As soon as computers get involved, people get this idea that old rules no longer apply "because computers". This is why the book PGP Source Code and Internals was published; because ink on paper makes the matter clear cut.
    - rewmie 3y ago
      > In principle they have the same constitutional rights as newspapers. This sort of pointless truism means nothing at all. The crux of the matter boils down to the common carrier status, and whether companies can be held liable for the content being handled through their service. If a social media company editorializes the content it distributes, it's liable for each and any consequence of distributing it. Simple as that.

r721 3y ago

Mike Masnick's opinion: >Elon Musk Files Really Strong 1st Amendment Challenge To California’s Terrible Social Media ‘Transparency’ Law https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/08/elon-musk-files-really-strong-1st-amendment-challenge-to-californias-terrible-social-media-transparency-law/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/08/elon-musk-files-really-s...

digging 3y ago
I don't know who Masnick is but the loaded headline tells me I shouldn't care. So, should I?
- r721 3y ago
  Tech/legal blogger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techdirt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techdirt https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/technology/mike-masnick-techdirt-internet-future.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/technology/mike-masnick-t... He's usually quite critical of Musk, so it's a newsworthy thing that he supported him in this case.
- DashAnimal 3y ago
  Mike Masnick is probably one of the most critical people of Elon. You've may have read one of his articles prior, perhaps in the early days when Elon bought Twitter. His analysis of Elon's obligations to purchase Twitter, criticism of Elon's approach to content moderation (and lack of understanding), it's all been pretty good and legally sound. The fact that he is praising Elon here says something.
  - freejazz 3y ago
    Whether or not he's critical of Elon has no bearing on his legal analysis
    - MichaelDickens 3y ago
      In theory, where people are perfect reasoners, it doesn't. Realistically, people tend to form opinions that fit the narratives they want. If someone who normally takes one side of a politicized issue instead takes the other side, that suggests that the case for the other side is particularly compelling because it compelled this person to switch sides.

nemo44x 3y ago

I didn't realize how draconian and big brother-ish the law was: > AB 587 passed in September 2022, requiring social media platforms to submit a "terms of service report" semi-annually to California's attorney general, providing "a detailed description of content moderation practices used" and "information about whether, and if so how, the social media company defines and moderates" hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference. Under the law, social media platforms must also provide information and statistics on any content moderation actions taken in those categories. This is quite literally thought police. You literally have to send the state's lawyers details on how you moderate content to ensure it complies with whatever arbitrary thing the state believes in at the time. This is clearly not constitutional and the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated.

two_handfuls 3y ago
> the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated. Red herring. It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Reporting stats is usually step 1 to regulating those things... It won't be long before laws say things like "99% of takedowns must occur within 1 hour of a report being made" or "No more than 1% of users may see content which is later taken down on any given day, otherwise we will fine you for insufficient moderation" That, combined with a court making a few decisions on moderation (months after the fact), means that the only way way for a platform to make sure that < 1% of users see content taken down by a court later is to remove all except the safest content right away before anyone sees it. End result: Self policing to only uncontroversial boring stuff.
  - mingus88 3y ago
    Slippery slope fallacy

hirundo 3y ago

They're required to spell out their moderation policy and provide details on how it's enforced, but the law does not appear to put constraints on the policy. So it would seem to be consistent with the law to have a policy like We moderate depending on our values and feelings as we experience them at the time, and we do not strive for consistency in these judgments and they may change depending on how well our moderators have slept the night before or how the air pressure affects their sinusitus. That would seem to comply with the law while enabling the social network to maintain maximum flexibility.

orra 3y ago
That's clearly not a real policy. You can't trick a court with such obvious deception. In particular, moderators have bosses, and nobody can believe moderators can do what the hell they want without their manager having a say. > while enabling the social network to maintain maximum flexibility. In other words, giving the employees absolute discretion isn't normally what you would consider giving the company (owners/directors) flexibility.
- adrr 3y ago
  That’s why they are fighting it. They don’t want to put that Musk is the moderation policy.
  - bluescrn 3y ago
    'It's a private company, they can ban/block/censor whoever/whatever they want' Pre-Musk, wasn't that always the standard standard response to criticism of activism-driven social media censorship?
    - tzs 3y ago
      So? That's still the standard response. All this bill is doing is saying that the company has to state what their rules for this are.

gustavus 3y ago

So the law they are suing over is here https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB587/id/2599787 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB587/id/2599787 I think the part that they probably have issue with is the "(5) (A) Information on content that was flagged by the social media company as content belonging to any of the categories described in paragraph (3), including all of the following: (i) The total number of flagged items of content. (ii) The total number of actioned items of content. (iii) The total number of actioned items of content that resulted in action taken by the social media company against the user or group of users responsible for the content. (iv) The total number of actioned items of content that were removed, demonetized, or deprioritized by the social media company. (v) The number of times actioned items of content were viewed by users. (vi) The number of times actioned items of content were shared, and the number of users that viewed the content before it was actioned. (vii) The number of times users appealed social media company actions taken on that platform and the number of reversals of social media company actions on appeal disaggregated by each type of action. (B) All information required by subparagraph (A) shall be disaggregated into the following categories: (i) The category of content, including any relevant categories described in paragraph (3). (ii) The type of content, including, but not limited to, posts, comments, messages, profiles of users, or groups of users. (iii) The type of media of the content, including, but not limited to, text, images, and videos. (iv) How the content was flagged, including, but not limited to, flagged by company employees or contractors, flagged by artificial intelligence software, flagged by community moderators, flagged by civil society partners, and flagged by users. (v) How the content was actioned, including, but not limited to, actioned by company employees or contractors, actioned by artificial intelligence software, actioned by community moderators, actioned by civil society partners, and actioned by users." Combined with this section of the bill "(b) Actions for relief pursuant to this chapter shall be prosecuted exclusively in a court of competent jurisdiction by the Attorney General or a district attorney or by a county counsel authorized by agreement with the district attorney in actions involving violation of a county ordinance, or by a city attorney of a city having a population in excess of 750,000, or by a city attorney in a city and county or, with the consent of the district attorney, by a city prosecutor in a city having a full-time city prosecutor in the name of the people of the State of California upon their own complaint or upon the complaint of a board, officer, person, corporation, or association. (c) If an action pursuant to this section is brought by the Attorney General, one-half of the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered, and one-half to the General Fund. If the action is brought by a district attorney or county counsel, the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered. If the action is brought by a city attorney or city prosecutor, one-half of the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the city in which the judgment was entered, and one-half to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered." Basically the law requires a full disclosure of all content moderation decisions and explicitly why they were made, and then gives incentive for various city DAs to bring suit by promising them a 50% cut of whatever money is made in the lawsuit.

a2xd94 3y ago

> "In its complaint, X Corp. argued that AB 587 violates the First Amendment..." How in the hell can a corporation claim that it has free speech? While we're at it, maybe we should also find corporations liable for damages done on the communities they serve, with the chief executives being the proxy humans for those damages, including murder (ahem chemical, oil companies)? That would be highly satisfactory.

deleted 3y ago
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shadowgovt 3y ago
> How in the hell can a corporation claim that it has free speech? Barring superseding reasons to the contrary, in general US legal structure ascribes to corporations the same rights ascribed to individuals. This is a new construct (about 1970s) but it is the law of the land as interpreted by the Courts. https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speech-for-corporations.html https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec...
postingawayonhn 3y ago
Corporations are just collections of people working together. Why would they not have freedom of speech?
- explaininjs 3y ago
  Freedom of speech should only be given to those people and/or collections of people the parent already agrees with, of course. And only the good guys should have guns (as determined by an Expert’s “mental health” assessment). And of course the state is free to seize funds from criminals. Oh and while “our guys” are in federal power we’d better create a bunch of new rules and regulations, that way we can coerce all those states filled with idiots into our hightened moral ground.
- avmich 3y ago
  There is a difference - collection of people is not a person, at least not for all cases.

electrondood 3y ago

Wasn't the entire point of the Matt Taibbi "Twitter files" attempt at a news story to expose exactly this, except slanted to make it look like a big liberal conspiracy rather than the good faith operation of a social media platform? Musk made big loud statements about free speech, etc. and then ended up arriving back at the status quo. Turns out there never was a problem to begin with, and you actually need the TOS (you know, the reason Babylon Bee, Jordan Peterson, and Trump were correctly banned) because a toxic platform drives away users and advertisers.

the_optimist 3y ago
The US Federal government, Justice Department, and FBI were involved in censorship campaigns targeting specific individuals. You’re omitting this part.
- drcongo 3y ago
  They still are. Why do you think that has changed? Musk has complied with more demands from government since taking over than the previous leadership did. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfilling-more-government-censorship-requests-under-musk https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfillin...
- smoldesu 3y ago
  The US Federal government, Justice Department, and FBI are currently involved in every substantial American business. Did Matt think he was scooping Snowden 9 years after the fact?
- ModernMech 3y ago
  To be precise, 3 Republican appointed Federalist Society judges ruled the Biden administration "likely violated" the First Amendment. The judiciary has been politicized to the point that we can't pretend these people are nonpartisan anymore. They're politicians in robes with a political agenda.
  - doitLP 3y ago

giantg2 3y ago

I guess they don't want to reveal the complaint box is really a shredder feed hopper.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

supermatt 3y ago

Easily resolved: Remind X that they are responsible for all content published on their platform. You cant expect to have immunity under section 230 if you arent going to provide "good samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material. The exemption is what has allowed the internet to become what it has today. Lawmakers have already threatened to change this in the past. I'd much rather they see the current law already handles bad actors than for them to introduce something "new".

ch4s3 3y ago
That isn’t the law works. And 230 aside, they do have speech rights. The law protects against the government compelling speech. * edit to fix typo
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- supermatt 3y ago
  > That isn’t the law works. That is the actual law: https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt > Thermale protects against the government compelling speech. What compelled speech?
  - tzs 3y ago
    That is probably the most useless yet technically correct link anyone has ever given here, so congratulations on that. :-) For those who don't want to try to find in that nearly 50000 word bill that is a massive mix of additions and diffs updating a large part of telecommunication law, here is a link to where the small section that is relevant to this discussion ended up in codified in the US code [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 Clarification: I am not saying that their interpretation of Section 230 is correct. I am just saying that the link they provided to the text of Section 230 is in fact a link to the text of Section 230.

bastard_op 3y ago

[flagged]

jerf 3y ago
X's moderation job is immensely larger than Musk's ego. And yes, I know it's tempting to make the obvious snarky variations on "nuh-uh, his ego is just that large, hurr hurr hurr", but, no, I'm serious, it's plural orders of magnitude larger. Social media networks have entire content moderation regimes in countries Musk does not care about or speak the language of. It's huge. It's arguably the defining moat for these companies. This employs an army of people both directly doing the content management and writing the intent analysis bots and all sorts of people and I'd guestimate, let's see, try to get the orders of magnitude approximately correct here so this is not just a random number of zeros, 0.0000000001% of moderation decisions made somewhere in X are a direct reflection of Musk's ego.

jmyeet 3y ago

[flagged]

the_optimist 3y ago
[flagged]
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  That's a pretty weak response. "Yeah he's playing favorites and oppressing one political side, but you're on that side so you're biased when you call it out"
  - the_optimist 3y ago
    You’re paraphrasing incorrectly. The portrayal of the X/twitter account as distributing rather than opposing CSAM was intentionally misleading and weaponized. There’s no evidence of bias at twitter from the response.
stainablesteel 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop using HN for ideological battle? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for—regardless of what you're for or against. Your account has been doing this repeatedly and that's not what HN is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
atlantic 3y ago
> Since Elon's acquisition, there has been a massive increase in hate speech on Twitter while Musk bans journalists. What's hate speech? Serious question. Most practical uses coincide with "opinions that hurt my feelings". Can you define it objectively?

reset2023 3y ago

[flagged]

charles_f 3y ago

> X Corp. argued that AB 587 violates the First Amendment by compelling "companies like X Corp. to engage in speech against their will" and "impermissibly" interfering "with the constitutionally protected editorial judgments of companies." Ok genuine question there: are companies considered the same as people when it comes to US Constitution? Does a company have free speech and the right to bear arms?

rgbrenner 3y ago
Courts have said: Companies are just groups of people. So a person, employed by Twitter, has the same free speech rights as anyone else. If you force a company to take certain actions, a person in the company must perform that action... and forcing that person to take certain actions may be a violation of that person's rights.
- rhyme-boss 3y ago
  That seems logically incoherent (for a court to say). An individual can leave a company if they don't want to take those actions.
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    I think it would be more logically incoherent if a group of people magically lost their rights because they got together to make a company.
    - rhyme-boss 3y ago
      It's a voluntary arrangement that they can leave. Certain activities come with responsibilities and restrictions, *in the interest of protecting everyone else's rights.
      - whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
        No our constitutional rights are not predicated on our actions or speech having no impact on society. On the contrary our rights are so that we may impact society as we see fit. This is such a dangerous line of thought I almost don’t believe it. Users original comment mentioned impact on society.

charles_f 3y ago

Not that I am a particular fan of Twitter, and I think forcing some transparency per how you moderate content is quite a good idea - but doing that at a state level is annoying. Every nation already has its own rules and laws, which quite makes sense for physical goods, but is much harder to track for software. The US should at least have one unified rule when it comes to these topics. I understand it's not really the way legislation is usually determined, but look at GDPR: even Europe (which is not a country) managed to do it in a centralized way.

kjksf 3y ago
This is actually one of Twitter legal arguments against this law: section 230 explicitly gives companies ability to moderate user submitted content as they please. By putting additional restrictions on moderation activities (the requirement to report to government how they are moderating) this state law contradicts the federal law and the way things work, federal law wins. We will have to wait to see if the judge / juries agree with this argument, but that's one of the reasons Twitter believes this law should be eliminated.
- candybar 3y ago
  This is legally nonsensical - nothing about Section 230 precludes any further restriction on moderation by another entity. Section 230 is and has always been about the act of moderation not specifically creating liability for the carrier of user-generated content - nothing about Section 230 grants the publisher any specific right not to be subject to further moderation at another level. The first amendment angle is a stronger argument, but unfortunately for X, it's also extremely weak and would require overriding decades of precedence and essentially create a crisis - there are far more onerous regulations in place that are still relied upon in a way that having them constitutionally challenged would be extremely damaging.
candybar 3y ago
I think this is a good take - the legal theories mentioned in this thread (1st amendment, Section 230) seem mostly baseless, but this doesn't seem like appropriate legislation at the state-level either way. I don't know enough about the commerce clause restrictions on state regulations, but I do wonder if that comes into play given that moderation policies will almost always have interstate and international commerce implications.

justapassenger 3y ago

[flagged]

dofof 3y ago
[flagged]

perihelions 3y ago

65 additional comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37442998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37442998 ("X challenges California’s new transparency law as unconstitutional (techcrunch.com)")

fwungy 3y ago

X: We are a common carrier Government: You must censor X: OK, we'll remove content deemed highly offensive Government: You're not a common carrier now.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

perihelions 3y ago

The Washington Post quoted an expert as saying this law, A.B. 587, is "likely to be struck down as unconstitutional". This back in 2022 when the law passed—before Elon Musk attached himself to this story and polarized everyone. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/13/california-social-network-transparency/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/13/califor... ("New California law likely to set off fight over social media moderation")

hnburnsy 3y ago
Might be interesting to see if WaPo posts an article that slants in favor of the bill now that Musk is against it. That article was quite neutral, IMO.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Newspapers pretty regularly have articles on multiple sides of an issue, though sometimes one viewpoint is relegated to the opinion section. Crucially however, "this law is unconstitutional for reason Q" does not mean that "Musk says making their business codify their moderation is against free speech" is correct.

LightBug1 3y ago

That people are still using that cesspit of a website, even after all this nonsense, is what astounds me ... After all the free speech, moderation, and etc etc etc promises made ... After appointing an empty-chair CEO ... After everything It amazes me ...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

kibwen 3y ago

Note: "X" refers to Twitter, rather than a generic placeholder.

lovecg 3y ago

For people saying, “oh this is just a reporting requirement and fear mongering over this law is a slippery-slope fallacy”: it would be, except the people behind the law have been repeatedly documented as wanting to jump headfirst down this slippery slope: > if social media companies are forced to disclose what they do in this regard [i.e., how they moderate online content], it may pressure them to become better corporate citizens by doing more to eliminate hate speech and disinformation. > [T]he Legislature also considered that, by requiring greater transparency about platforms’ content-moderation rules and decisions, AB 587 may result in public pressure on social media companies to ‘become better corporate citizens by doing more to eliminate hate speech and disinformation’ on their platforms. . . . This, too, is a substantial state interest. > important first step in protecting our democracy from the dangerously divisive content that has become all too common on social media. Note that “hate speech” and “disinformation” are not legal concepts and both include various protected speech. This is your government arguing in the open how this law in fact is a great first step towards restricting some of this protected speech.

PathOfEclipse 3y ago
I'm continually amazed how much people fall for language manipulation."Hate speech" is almost always speech the powerful want silenced. And, what kind of speech do the powerful censor? * The truth whenever it is inconvenient to them * speech that threatens their power * speech that hampers their agendas Just about everyone who decries "hate speech" is actually perfectly fine with it, as long as it is directed towards the people they themselves hate. Here is one example: https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1523476586330136576 https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1523476586330136576 The offender, Caroline Reilly, called for literal genocide on Twitter, and was never censored! You can't get more hateful than that. I wish I knew how to wake people up to the fact that "hate speech" laws are nothing but a power grab for the already-powerful.

declan_roberts 3y ago

All X has to do is make controversial content decisions the same way the other social media companies do: at the behest of our intelligence agencies and opaque government-funded "partners"!

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
[flagged]
rnk 3y ago
I can't tell if you are kidding in thinking that's what has been happening. The twitter files turned out to be a kind of huge exaggeration. The govt wasn't really controlling twitter, there was a big exaggeration of what happened.
- Karunamon 3y ago
  It was enough control for a judge to outright bar a number of government agencies and people from communicating with any social media company on moderation matters, and then another judge to uphold that bar.
  - camdat 3y ago
    The requirements for an injunction are much lower than an actual ruling. The party must just show that they have a possibility of winning the case and that granting temporary relief will not cause additional harm to the plaintiff. To use that as proof that the defendant will win is ridiculous.
    - Karunamon 3y ago
      a possibility of winning the case The actual term used is "likely to prevail". Injunctions are not handed out willy-nilly, and the actual wording in the injunction should give you pause: "The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government" Nobody said anything about "proof that the defendant will win". I said said that several judges have found evidence of unconstitutional pressure being applied. Please do not misrepresent a plain statement of fact.

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

From the definition in the bill how a "Social media platform" is defined has no requirement to userbase, so wouldn't every Mastodon server and small self hosted message board have to submit to this too or face fines? https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB587 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

hnburnsy 3y ago
>22680. This chapter shall not apply to a social media company that generated less than one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) in gross revenue during the preceding calendar year.
- jmyeet 3y ago
  So, before too long even Twitter won’t be affected.
- hnburnsy 3y ago
  I think that this would be this list, not sure about jurisdiction... Reddit Pinterest Snap TikTok X LinkedIn WeChat Youtube Meta
  - hnburnsy 3y ago
    Twitch?
    - faeranne 3y ago
      I don't think Twitch fits the other definitions, 22675(e)(2)(b) probably could be argued to not fit with Twitch.
faeranne 3y ago
I was about to type up a message about how this affects private services too, buuuuut... section 22680 pretty summarily removes self hosted instances. I doubt any of them are making $100,000,000 profit per year.

coding123 3y ago

I have a feeling Elon is working with people in IT to "block" CA from accessing the Twitter and X domain names. - Not implement it juuuuust yet, but probably a 2 day test coming for sure.

hnburnsy 3y ago

This feels like the NSA, hey citizens we aren't capturing the content of your phone calls, just the metadata around your phone calls.

lovecg 3y ago

Text of the law: > (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. I like to imagine what this would look like if the other side was in charge. Say Russia or Florida for that matter. (In case of Russia, one doesn’t have to imagine). > (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) LGBT propaganda. (B) Woke ideology. (C) Harassment of religious freedoms. Not so hard to see how complying with this law would be compelled speech, is it now? Whether one says yes or no, you’re implicitly agreeing that these categories are real things. You can’t quite say “I disagree with the law as written” unless you sue, which is what’s happening here.

woodruffw 3y ago
> you’re implicitly agreeing that these categories are real things You have this the wrong way around: these things have legal definitions in both state and federal law, and your "agreement" is not a mandatory condition. Put another way: the state of California is not interested in whether you think hate speech is real. The suit doesn't hinge on that at all; it hinges on whether the government can compel corporate speech that amounts to a disclosure of internal policies. Which it can, for the same reason that the government can compel businesses to do their taxes, file permits, and disclose their political contributions.
- lovecg 3y ago
  This seems to be at least part of the complaint if I’m reading it right: > AB 587 thus mandates X Corp. to speak about sensitive, controversial topics about which it does not wish to speak in the hopes of pressuring X Corp. to limit constitutionally-protected content on its platform that the State apparently finds objectionable or undesirable. This violates the free speech rights granted to X Corp. under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 2, of the California Constitution. As for the precedent, > Which it can, for the same reason that the government can compel businesses to do their taxes, file permits, and disclose their political contributions. My understanding is that what can be compelled is pretty limited (e.g. facts in advertising, ingredients, etc.), it’s not a blanket precedent for the state to ask you to produce anything at any time.

dahwolf 3y ago

No matter where you stand, I think it's good that this is happening. The CA law might be overreaching whilst Twitter might be too lax. Hopefully a head-to-head brings clarity on an important topic. With the CA law, EU regulation, app store policies and the like, a pretty powerful net is cast around the topic of speech. Specifically about speech that is technically legal yet considered unwelcome. It's tempting to let judgement be clouded by a hate for Musk, but it's a topic worthy to think about more deeply beyond just X. It's also revealing how this legislation only targets Big Tech. From a pragmatic point of view, this makes total sense. But it also shows that this legislation isn't based on first principles. It's a panicky patch on an open wound, not the definitive say on free speech.