Elon Musk’s X Corp has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York over a recent law requiring social media companies to disclose how they monitor hate speech and disinformation.
The complaint filed by X alleges that the Stop Hiding Hate Act violates free speech rights under the First Amendment.
The act was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul last December and requires companies to submit detailed reports on the steps they take to moderate extremism, foreign influence, disinformation, hate speech and other forms of hateful content.
Musk’s lawyers oppose the possible penalty of US$15,000 per violation per day for failing to comply with the law, which they claim would require X to divulge “highly sensitive information and controversial speech”.
The lawsuit quoted a letter from two legislators who sponsored the law, which said X and Musk have a “disturbing record” of content moderation that “threatens the foundations of our democracy”.
“We’re confident that the court will reject this attempt by X to use the First Amendment as a shield against providing New Yorkers with much needed transparency around their conduct, and uphold the Stop Hiding Hate Act as consistent with similar laws in other states that have already been found to be constitutional,” legislation sponsors Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly member Grace Lee said in a statement.
This comes as X blocked an almost identical California law in September last year.
Since Musk acquired Twitter and rebranded it as X in 2022, he has significantly scaled back content moderation and efforts to combat hate speech on the platform.
