California Agrees To Drop Parts Of Social Media Law Challenged By Elon Musk’s X

SACRAMENTO, California — California has agreed to drop portions of a law that requires large social media companies to disclose their policies for handling hate speech, disinformation, harassment and extremism following a legal challenge from Elon Musk’s X.

A settlement reached Monday between state Attorney General Rob Bonta and Musk’s social media platform stops short of tossing the entire law, as X demanded when it first filed the case in 2023, citing First Amendment complaints.

But it deals a blow to California’s push to publicize how social media platforms define and referee speech on their platforms. It also comes as other Big Tech CEOs like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have attempted to curry favor with President Donald Trump by loosening their own content moderation policies and cutting third-party fact-checkers from their platforms.

Monday’s settlement follows a September ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which temporarily paused the law from taking effect after a three-judge panel found parts of the law violated the First Amendment.

X had argued the law violated social media companies’ freedom of speech by forcing companies to provide detailed information about how they evaluate and regulate ill-defined categories of political content.

Attorneys for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

California’s justice department ”is committed” to enforcing what remains of the law, first passed as AB 587 in 2022, spokesperson Elissa Perez said Monday evening in a statement to POLITICO.

Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, the Democrat who authored the law, said in a statement to POLITICO that he was “disappointed by the outcome" but appreciates that "important provisions of the law remain in effect."

"I look forward to working closely with my colleagues as we consider additional legislation to protect our communities," he added.

Under the terms of the settlement, social media platforms will not be required to tell state officials how they define hateful, extremist or misleading speech. Additionally, the state is barred from requiring a platform to disclose data on how often it flags or removes posts that violate its content moderation rules.

However, platforms will still be required to publicly post their terms of service and share a summary of any changes with state officials twice per year. The reports must also share how companies enforce their terms of service and remove content found to violate their platform's rules.

The settlement is now before a federal judge for final judgment.