Florida Governor Signs Bill to Bar Twitter, Facebook and Others From Blocking Political Candidates
May 25 2021 - 12:29AM
Dow Jones News
By John D. McKinnon
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday aimed at
making big tech platforms more accountable for their content
decisions, a move with political overtones that appeared likely to
draw legal challenges.
Mr. DeSantis, a potential GOP presidential contender with ties
to former President Donald Trump, said the legislation could help
conservatives defend themselves from unfair de-platforming and
other online restrictions. Social-media companies generally deny
that their decisions to ban or otherwise restrict content and users
are skewed by political bias.
The bill says that "social media platforms have unfairly
censored, shadow banned [and] de-platformed" Floridians.
It would prohibit tech platforms from banning Florida political
candidates. The bill says large social-media platforms may not ban
or delete the account of a Florida political candidate for more
than 14 days, and authorizes a fine of $250,000 a day for
violations related to candidates running for statewide office. It
also outlaws censoring or de-platforming journalistic enterprises
based on content, in an apparent response to Facebook's and
Twitter's decisions -- later reversed -- to limit sharing of an
October New York Post article that made allegations about Hunter
Biden, President Biden's son.
The bill also requires social-media companies to be transparent
about their content moderation practices and give users notice of
changes to their policies. People who are treated unfairly in
content decisions will have the right to sue companies that violate
the law and win money damages, Mr. DeSantis said. The legislation
would apply to companies with at least 100 million monthly users
world-wide.
Florida officials also said the legislation would bring more
transparency to platforms' use of algorithms. It also would
restrict companies' ability to contract with public entities if
they are found to have violated antitrust laws.
The Florida legislative effort gained new momentum when Mr.
Trump was kicked off several big social-media platforms, including
Twitter and Facebook, after a pro-Trump crowd stormed the U.S.
Capitol on Jan. 6.
"Today, Floridians are being guaranteed protection against the
Silicon Valley power grab on speech, thought, and content," Mr.
DeSantis said on Twitter. "We the people are standing up to tech
totalitarianism with the signing of Florida's Big Tech Bill."
Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. declined to comment. Alphabet
Inc., owner of Google and YouTube, didn't respond to a request for
comment.
Tech allies in Washington suggested the legislation is a
violation of the companies' First Amendment free-speech rights.
They said without some moderation by tech companies Florida's law
would allow foreign-extremist content, as well as violent and
hateful speech and pornography, to flourish across the
internet.
Tech allies also chided Florida legislators for carving out
digital services run by companies that own big theme parks, such as
Walt Disney Co.
"This law is unconstitutional and will ultimately leave
Floridians more exposed to bad actors online," said Robert
Callahan, senior vice president of state government affairs at the
Internet Association, a trade group. "It is also more about
politics than prevention, as the bill arbitrarily exempts major
mass media corporations as long as they are also in the theme park
business."
Disney didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bill likely faces multiple potential legal hurdles. Perhaps
the biggest is the First Amendment rights of the social-media
platforms. The bill suggests that those rights might be limited
because the platforms have effectively become public squares --
places where the free-speech rights of users are usually paramount.
That's an argument that has proved difficult to win in other legal
battles over internet users' free-speech rights, however.
The law also could face problems under Section 230 of the
federal Communications Decency Act. That 1996 law gave the internet
companies sweeping immunity from legal consequences of their users'
actions. It also gave them broad ability to police content.
The Florida bill is the latest effort from state legislatures to
rein in what lawmakers allege as unchecked power of large
technology companies. Arizona, Maryland and Virginia are among
states where lawmakers have sought to pass laws on issues ranging
from online privacy and digital advertisements to app-store fees
collected by Google and Apple Inc. A New York state senator in
February introduced a bill that would collect a tax on the revenue
that companies generate from the sale of residents' consumer
data.
Bowdeya Tweh and Ryan Tracy contributed to this article.
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 25, 2021 00:15 ET (04:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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