Coalition Sues California Attorney General Over Alleged Social Media Censorship

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announces a lawsuit against Amazon during a news conference in San Francisco on Sept. 14, 2022. Eric Risberg/AP Photo

The satirical website The Babylon Bee, social media company Minds Inc., and podcaster Tim Pool have sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta for enforcing a state law they claim is unconstitutional on the grounds it violates free speech.

The legislation, authored by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), regulates social media platforms, requiring them to report data on the enforcement of their moderation policies to the state.

“The public and policymakers deserve to know when and how social media companies are amplifying certain voices and silencing others,” Gabriel said in a statement. “This is an important first step in a broader effort to protect our democracy and better regulate social media platforms.”

The law also mandates social media companies publicly post their policies regarding “hate speech,” “disinformation,” “extremism,” and “radicalization” on their platforms.

Bill Ottman, CEO of Minds Inc., says the law is arbitrary, vague, and fails to adequately define such terms.

“That’s what’s so malicious about this law,“ he told The Epoch Times. ”You can’t just mandate policies around terms that are not defined, and that’s likely the reason why they don’t define it: Because you can’t.

“It’s just so invasive. It’s a politically charged law.”

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Terms such as “extremism” and “radicalization,” for example, can’t be clearly defined, Ottman says.

“Extreme what? Radical what?” he asked.

‘Unconstitutional Ambitions’

The lawsuit, which seeks to block enforcement of the law, was filed in federal court in central California on April 11. It alleges that Bonta and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are using the law, Assembly Bill (AB) 587, enacted in January, as a vehicle for “unconstitutional ambitions.”

“Our office has not yet been served,“ Bonta’s office said in response to a request for comment. ”Once served, we will review the complaint and respond in court.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks with reporters in Brentwood, Calif., on Nov. 10, 2021. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Newsom’s office didn’t respond by press time.

The lawsuit alleges the statute is “viewpoint-based censorship” intended to “chill expression of lawful speech the State of California disapproves of.”

While it mainly targets large social media platforms, the plaintiffs argue it also chills the free speech of users by “incentivizing large platforms to censor speech based on viewpoint,” and impacts smaller social networks by imposing an industry standard promoting censorship.

The bill is “not about satisfying some academic curiosity,” but is rather intended to “cast platforms that do not censor enough as pariahs,” the plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit.

The document notes the largest social media networks, including Reddit, Alphabet (the parent company of Google and YouTube), Meta (parent of Facebook and Instagram)‚ and Twitter are all headquartered in California, thus giving the state widespread influence over social media policy.

The lawsuit alleges that both Newsom and Bonta have candidly expressed their “displeasure” with the speech now being published on social media platforms, and their “desire to use state power to chill speech they do not approve of, constitutionally protected expression they refer to with derogatory labels like ‘disinformation,’ ‘hate speech,’ and ‘extremism.’”

“This whole idea that censorship protects democracy is so deeply absurd,” Ottman said. “It’s a satire itself. The Babylon Bee doesn’t even have to write the headline. They’re literally saying that censorship protects democracy, while anyone who knows anything about America [says], ‘No. Free speech is what protects democracy.’”

The Twitter logo on the exterior of the company's headquarters in San Francisco on Oct. 28, 2022. Constanza Hevia/AFP via Getty Images

Ottman is co-author of a paper called “The Censorship Effect,” which argues that censorship on social media sites even harms people by pushing them deeper into “echo chambers.”

Censorship “can stunt psychological growth, increase the sense of entitlement, decrease control of emotions and outbursts, enhance aggression, and delay the development of coping skills,” according to the paper.

With Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s release of the “Twitter Files” to journalists, Ottman said the existence of a censorship apparatus between government and Big Tech “has been deeply proven” and has been called “the censorship industrial complex.”

Social media is intended to help people share information and debate issues—not limit the spectrum of debate, Ottman said.

“People are allowed to be wrong on social media,” he said. “They have the freedom to be wrong or even stupid.”

There are no disinformation, misinformation, and hate speech exceptions in the U.S. Constitution, he pointed out.

“So, that’s it. There’s nothing else to say,” he said.

Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, in Washington on June 22, 2022. Matthew Pearson/CPI Studios

‘Censorship Bill’

Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee—known for its humorous news satire of current events and public figures—alleges in an article published April 12 that AB 587 is “unconstitutional censorship.”

“In short, we argue that the law violates the First Amendment, is too vague to be constitutionally enforced, and violates the free speech guarantees in the California Constitution,” he wrote.

Dillon contends AB 587—named the Social Media Transparency and Accountability Act—is not about “transparency” as the state government claims.

“That’s not true,” he wrote. “This is a censorship bill, not a transparency bill.”

Dillon suggests in the article that Newsom essentially acknowledged that the measure was about censorship when he signed AB 587 into law on Sept. 13, 2022, and said, “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,” in a statement issued that day.

“It’s a good thing when people are allowed to speak freely. It’s a bad thing when Big Tech and the government work together to decide what we’re allowed to say,” Dillon wrote. “Why? Because they often get it wrong. Even worse, they get it wrong on purpose.”

Dillon noted The Babylon Bee has already experienced censorship with its Twitter account locked for eight months after posting a satirical article naming Rachel Levine—the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services who identifies as a transgender woman—as its first annual “Man of the Year.”

The Babylon Bee website shows U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, as “Man of the Year” in one of its headlines. Screenshot via The Epoch Times

He argues that “censorship guards the narrative, not the truth,” as he emphasized in his testimony before Congress in March.

“In fact, it guards the narrative at the expense of the truth. In today’s post-truth, anti-reality world, describing a male person as a man is considered ‘hateful conduct,’” he wrote. “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.”

Support and Opposition

Several groups representing business interests, including the California Chamber of Commerce, TechNet, and the Civil Justice Association of California, opposed the AB 587 law, while the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Common Sense, and the California League of United Latin American Citizens supported it.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL, praised Newsom for “courageous leadership” when he signed the bill, stating, “It’s time for big social media platforms to stop hiding hate.”

The lawsuit against the enforcement of AB 587 is the latest legal battle against California laws that critics claim suppress free speech. In January, a federal judge blocked a law that threatened the medical licenses of doctors who disagreed with the government’s COVID-19 guidelines and accused them of spreading “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

The judge ruled in a preliminary order that the law, AB 2098, was “unconstitutionally vague.”