California bill would punish social media companies for not suppressing speech

The bill says it isn’t intended “to regulate speech or viewpoint but to clarify that social media platforms, like all other businesses, may not knowingly use their systems to promote, facilitate, or contribute to conduct that violates state civil rights laws.” In reality, the bill would punish social media companies for user speech protected under the First Amendment, Shoshana Weissmann, director of digital media at the R Street Institute, explains to Reason. 

“This bill includes algorithms where new posts are shown first or posts shown are only from the people one follows, without further customization,” she says. “Under this bill, any form of showing content to users would make the companies liable for user speech. This obviously makes no sense.” 

It also does not explain how social media companies can knowingly promote hate. “Under the law, ‘knowingly’ seems to include anytime the platform uses an algorithm,” she adds. 

By only penalizing companies with $100 million or more in annual gross profits, the bill may, ironically, promote more extreme speech online. Weissmann points to smaller social media platforms such as 4chan, which has a reputation for hosting more extreme content than larger companies but would be exempt from enforcement under the bill. 

Enforcement questions aside, the bill is sure to face scrutiny under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which largely protects platforms from being held liable for user speech.

“There have been many bills that attempt to get around First Amendment and Section 230 complications with compelling platforms to curtail user speech by targeting algorithms. There are many issues with doing so—including the fact that algorithms are also speech,” Weissmann says.