X had argued that the New York state law would compel the disclosure of ‘controversial speech’ fully protected by the First Amendment.
The New York Attorney General’s office urged a federal court on Nov. 3 to dismiss a lawsuit filed by X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, challenging a state law that requires online platforms to disclose how they deal with offensive content.
The Stop Hiding Hate Act, signed into law in December 2024, requires social media companies operating in New York with more than $100 million in annual revenue to report twice a year about how they monitor and respond to user-shared content related to hate speech, extremism, misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference.
In a lawsuit filed on June 17, X said the state law would force the disclosure of “highly sensitive and controversial speech” that is fully protected by the First Amendment and “disfavored” by the state.
New York Attorney General Letitia James stated in the Nov. 3 motion that the law was designed to enable consumers to make informed choices about their use of social media and urged the court to reject X’s lawsuit.
While a federal appeals court ruled in X’s favor in September 2024 in a similar case challenging a California law, James argued that the decision was based on an “erroneous premise” that social media companies’ content moderation policies are not commercial speech, a premise that the federal appeals court overseeing New York cases has rejected.
Lawyers for X, formerly known as Twitter, did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
The New York law, which took effect last month, requires social media platforms to disclose in their reports the total number of posts flagged as potential policy violations, the number of posts on which the companies took action, and the nature of those actions. The platforms are also required to publish their terms of service.
“With violence and polarization on the rise, social media companies must ensure that their platforms don’t fuel hateful rhetoric and disinformation,” James said in an Oct. 2 statement.
Social media companies that failed to meet the disclosure requirements may be subject to a civil penalty of up to $15,000 for each violation per day, according to James’s office.
X had argued that the state law, similar to its California precursor, violates social media platforms’ First Amendment-protected editorial autonomy by compelling them to adopt and regulate “controversial and difficult-to-define categories of content” disfavored by the state.
