Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, attempted to undo a California law that requires social media platforms to reveal their terms of service and provide reports every six months on content moderation efforts to the state government. However, the bid has been rejected.
X had filed a lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) after the enactment of AB 587, which mandates social media companies disclose their terms of service and provide semiannual reports to demonstrate their efforts to eliminate hate speech, racism, extremism, disinformation and harassment.
In its legal complaint, the company argued that the regulation regarding content moderation violated the First Amendment. X's attorneys argued that the legislative record was clear in stating that a primary objective of AB 587 was to pressure social media companies to minimize or eliminate content that the government has deemed objectionable.
Deadline has more on District Judge William Shubb's eight-page decision:
“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.
X did not immediately respond. The company's content moderation policies have long been contentious, dating to before Musk bought the company.
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