Elon Musk Legal Victory to Pause California Misinformation, Hate Speech Reporting Law

A federal appeals court sided with Elon Musk and X Corporation against a California law requiring companies to report and create definitions for a wide variety of speech violations, finding the law violates the First Amendment by unlawfully compelling companies to provide opinions on contentious matters, including defining what hate speech or misinformation is. The Ninth Circuit Court reversed a lower district federal court’s ruling initially in favor of California, and instructed the district court to enter a preliminary injunction on portions of the law, AB 587. AB 587, signed into law in 2022, was marketed as a transparency-oriented measure to have social companies make their content moderation policies and statistics available in public reports filed with the California Attorney General starting in January of 2024. The law requires social media companies to create and define moderation categories for hate speech, racism, extremism, radicalization, disinformation, misinformation, harassment and foreign political interference.