Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon announced in a recent Substack article that his site, among others, is suing California Attorney General Rob Bonta, D, to prevent the enforcement of a censorious social media law passed last year.
The law, AB 587, was passed in September. Social media platforms must report their speech policies to the California Attorney General regularly. The categories include misinformation, disinformation, extremism, radicalization, and hate speech.
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While this policy has been defended as simply promoting transparency, Dillon explains in his article why he thinks it’s just a cover for the actual goal.
“They’re claiming it’s just about “transparency.” That’s not true. This is a censorship bill, not a transparency bill. Here’s Gavin Newsom himself explaining why he signed the bill into law: “California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country.”
Despite Newsom’s positive framing, Dillon explained that this new governmental power is negative.
“It’s a bad thing when Big Tech and the government work together to decide what we’re allowed to say. Why? Because they often get it wrong. Even worse, they get it wrong on purpose. As I said in my testimony before Congress, censorship guards the narrative, not the truth. In fact, it guards the narrative at the expense of the truth.”
Dillon cited multiple examples of this phenomenon, such as calling biological males ‘men’ labeled as hate speech and satire as misinformation. “If Big Tech is tasked by the state with eliminating hateful or misinformative content, they’ll stuff everything they don’t like into those categories, including opinions, jokes, and even factual statements,” he explained. Dillon made clear that the lawsuit is designed to prevent government-compelled viewpoint discrimination.
Dillon and the Babylon Bee are not alone in this suit. Other plaintiffs include podcaster Tim Pool and the social media site Mind.
So what’s the legal argument?
Dillon summarizes that they’re arguing “the law violates the First Amendment, is too vague to be constitutionally enforced, and violates the free speech guarantees in the California Constitution.”
The argument ultimately hinges on the idea that California aims to shape social media platforms’ behavior with the law instead of just wanting transparency, as they claim.
To do this, the authors of the official complaint cited the words of Governor Gavin Newsom and AG Bonta.
In a letter to large social media platforms, including the likes of Meta, YouTube, and Twitter, Bonta wrote: “In advance of the upcoming November 2022 midterm election, social media platforms must take critical steps to stop the spread of disinformation and misinformation that attack the integrity of our electoral processes.”
This clearly shows a desire to chill certain kinds of speech, as Dillon and the plaintiffs allege. And in that same later, Bonta referenced AB 587 as a tool.
“In 2024, social media platforms will also have additional transparency obligations, as required by recent state legislation…… requires disclosures on content moderation practices as it relates to extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, and foreign political interference, among other areas.”
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“In the very next paragraph, Attorney General Bonta threatened the platforms,” the complaint reads. “Promising that “[t]he California Department of Justice will not hesitate to enforce these laws against any individual or group that violates them.” Id. The reference to “these laws” includes AB 587.”
The plaintiff’s complaint also stressed the fact the terms “disinformation,” “misinformation,” “extremism,” and “radicalization” are never defined and, therefore, far too vague to be included in law due to the significant risk of abuse.
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