"This is a censorship bill, not a transparency bill."
On Wednesday, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon announced on his Substack that his company along with podcast host Tim Pool and open source social network company Minds, Inc, have filed a lawsuit against Robert A. Bonta, the Attorney General of California, to stop the enforcement of a new "Unconstitutional censorship law called AB 587."
The law regulates that "on a semiannual basis" a social media company must "must submit to the Attorney General a terms of service report" that includes definitions of and the "content moderation practices used by the social media company" to deal with hate speech, racism, extremism,, disinformation,misinformation, and harassment.
If a social media company does not sufficiently comply with the new mandates or does not file the reports detailing how they are moderating content, it could lead to fines.
"They’re claiming it’s just about 'transparency,'" Dillon said. "That’s not true. This is a censorship bill, not a transparency bill."
When California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill in September 2022 he 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."
"Californians deserve to know how these platforms are impacting our public discourse, and this action brings much-needed transparency and accountability to the policies that shape the social media content we consume every day," Newsom added."
The lawsuit alleges that the bill was "written with the express intent to discourage expression."
On his Substack Dillon said, "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 added that Big Tech and the government often "get it wrong" and sometimes "on purpose" in their efforts towards content moderation.
"In today’s post-truth, anti-reality world, describing a male person as a man is considered 'hateful conduct,'" Dillon said. "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."
"We’ve already experienced it first hand," Dillon said.
As the Twitter files revealed, the social media company was complicit in censorship of conservative voices on the site, including the banning of the Babylon Bee from the platform. The satire outlet poked fun at biological male and Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine and said Levine was "Man of the Year."
Twitter owner Elon Musk restored the account after acquiring the outlet.
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