Musk’s X calls the new US transparency rule “unconstitutional” and disputes it

A new California legislation forcing social media companies to announce certain moderation procedures has been challenged by Elon Musk-run X (previously Twitter), which claims it is “unconstitutional” and a blatant infringement of the company’s right to free expression.

According to TechCrunch, the legislation, known as AB 587, mandates that social media firms disclose publicly their methods for policing hate speech, racism, extremism, misinformation, harassment, and foreign political intervention.

Through AB 587, the state “is requiring social media companies to take public positions on controversial and politically-charged issues,” according to X’s complaint.

“X Corp. is being forced to adopt the State’s politically-charged terms, which is a form of compelled speech in and of itself,” the complaint said. “Because X Corp. must take such positions on these topics as they are formulated by the State, X Corp. is being forced to adopt the State’s politically-charged terms.”

In order to pressure X Corp. into limiting constitutionally-protected information on its platform that the State obviously considers disagreeable or undesired, “AB 587 mandates X Corp. to speak about sensitive, controversial topics about which it does not wish to speak,” the statement said.

California Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, the bill’s sponsor, responded to the lawsuit by stating that it is “pure transparency legislation that just compels firms to be transparent about whether or not they are filtering material. It does not call for any particular content filtering guidelines.

A year ago, the AB 587 bill was made into law.