FLORIDA ‘DEPLATFORMING’ LAW FINALLY HEADED TO TRIAL

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) - Florida’s social media law, meant to prevent deplatforming and censoring users, is headed for trial. The case previously reached the U.S. Supreme Court, but is now back in Tallahassee.

A federal judge at the Federal Courthouse in Tallahassee will determine if the state can implement a law meant to prevent censorship on social media. But a tech trade association says the law still violates the First Amendment, and they’re confident they will prevail in the end.

According to a Florida Senate analysis of the law, a social media platform would be fined $100,000 for deplatforming any statewide political candidate. They’d also have to publish their standards for shadow-banning and give users certain opt-outs.

But the law has been blocked since 2021, when a federal judge found it violated the First Amendment.

More Florida politics:

After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the trial judge to take another look, the judge ruled this month that the case is going to trial, according to an industry trade association.

However, Florida cannot implement the law while they wait for the trial.

“They have rights to make editorial choices about what they think their consumers, their public, their community want to see,” said Matt Schruers, the president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association.

Previously, state leaders said in court filings that social media companies had been moderating their content arbitrarily and in bad faith, and using their power to silence those they don’t like, including by removing a COVID-19 panel Gov. Ron DeSantis convened.

“The overarching analysis is that the state cannot second-guess editorial decisions and choices about what’s appropriate for an online community is not all that different from a newspaper editor’s choices about what its readers want to read,” Schruers said.

But in his ruling earlier this month, the federal judge said the law was really meant to “eliminate liberal bias” and so it was “unconstitutional in many respects.”

When a final decision is reached, we’ll let you know.

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