REUTERS: A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday banned a recently approved law that would have allowed the state to penalize social media companies for banning political candidates, citing the law’s likely violation of free speech rights. In Tallahassee, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ordered a preliminary injunction preventing the law’s implementation, which was set to begin on Thursday.
In an order filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, the judge stated, “This order preliminarily enjoins implementation of the sections of the statute that are preempted or violate the First Amendment.”
“The plaintiffs’ contention that these statutes violate the First Amendment is likely to succeed on the merits,” Hinkle said. The United States Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees citizens the right to free expression. In May, two technology trade associations sued Florida over the new law. The lawsuit claimed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s bill, which he signed in May, was unconstitutional. NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, both internet advocacy groups, filed it (CCIA). Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet’s Google are among the group’s members.
Florida was set to be the first state to govern how online speech was controlled by social media corporations. The proposed law would have made it easier for Florida’s attorney general and others in the state to sue digital corporations for allegedly imposing content moderation on users in an unfair or inconsistent manner. Internet law experts have denounced the rule as illegal and pre-empted by Section 230, a federal law that protects online corporations from liability for user-generated material. Former President Donald Trump, a Republican, was restricted on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube after the companies banned or suspended him due to the potential of more violence after some of his supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6. The prohibition bolstered Republicans’ claims that web companies censor content because of anti-conservative bias. (In Bengaluru, Kanishka Singh contributed reporting; Kim Coghill edited the piece.)/n
