Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, has won an appeal against a California law that mandates social media companies to disclose their policies against disinformation and hate speech.
What Happened: On Wednesday, Musk took to X and praised X’s legal team for winning the appeal. He said, “Congrats to the X legal team for defending freedom of speech, the bedrock of democracy.”
His statement came after the ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a lower court’s decision that had refused to halt the enforcement of the new California law.
This law required large social media companies to publicly report their content moderation practices and data on objectionable posts.
The appeals court held that the law’s requirements were “more extensive than necessary” to achieve the state’s goal of making social media companies transparent about their moderation policies and practices, reported Reuters.
The lower court has been instructed to review whether the content moderation part of the law can be separated from other provisions.
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Why It Matters: Musk’s company X Corp. had filed a lawsuit to prevent the law from taking effect last year. The target was Assembly Bill No. 587 (AB 587), which was signed into law by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The social media giant argued that the law infringed upon the First Amendment’s speech protections.
At the time, Jesse Gabriel, the California state assembly member who authored the bill, stated, “If Twitter has nothing to hide, then they should have no objection to this bill.”
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022. Following the acquisition, the social media company underwent substantial workforce reductions, including cuts to its content moderation team.
However, in January, following this development, X announced plans to establish a content moderation team in Texas.
Last month, it was reported that X plans to close its San Francisco headquarters on Sept. 13, Friday.
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