Author of Calif. Social Media Law Defends It, Hours After X Sues to Block It

Hours after the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, sued to block enforcement of AB-587, California’s new social media law, the bill's author, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D), defended the statute as “a pure transparency measure that simply requires companies to be upfront about if and how they are moderating content,” Gabriel tweeted in a statement Friday.

AB-587 requires social media companies with annual revenue exceeding $100 million to file three “terms of service” reports with the California attorney general’s office in calendar 2024, specifically listing their content moderation policies and practices. The first report is due Jan. 1, and the second and the third by April 1 and Oct. 1, respectively. The reports subsequently will be required on April 1 and Oct. 1 of each year.

AB-587 “in no way requires any specific content moderation policies -- which is why it passed with strong, bipartisan support,” said Gabriel. “If Twitter has nothing to hide, then they should have no objection to this bill,” he said. AB-587 was first introduced in 2021, but took nearly two years to pass “in the face of fierce opposition from major social media companies,” said Gabriel.

AB-587 violates the First Amendment and the California Constitution because it compels companies like X “to engage in speech against their will,” said the company’s complaint Friday (docket 2:23-at-00903) in U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento. The measure also “impermissibly interferes” with the constitutionally protected editorial judgments of companies like X, it said. It has “both the purpose and likely effect” of pressuring companies “to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize” constitutionally protected speech that the state “deems undesirable or harmful,” the complaint said. It also places “an unjustified and undue burden” on social media companies, it said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) touts AB-587 as a mere transparency measure under which certain social media companies must make their content moderation policies and statistics publicly available, said the X complaint. “Yet, a review of the law’s purpose and likely effect -- as evidenced by the legislative history and statements from AB-587’s author, sponsors, and supporters -- demonstrates otherwise,” it said. As made clear by the legislative history and public court submissions from the Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) in defending the law, AB-587's “true intent” is to pressure social media platforms to eliminate certain constitutionally protected content that the state views as “problematic,” it said.

The topics that AB-587 forces social media platforms to speak about against their will “are highly controversial and politically charged,” said the complaint. As the legislative history acknowledges, the categories of speech on which AB-587 focuses “are those that are difficult to define” because their boundaries are often fraught with political bias, it said. Social media companies “are frequently criticized, no matter what they do, by individuals on both sides of the political aisle, for their editorial decisions about speech that arguably falls into these ill-defined categories,” it said.