Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has won an appeal to block a part of California’s content moderation law.
On Wednesday, the company won an appeal to partially block a California law requiring social media companies to publish their policies for combating disinformation, harassment, hate speech, and extremism.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a lower court judge’s decision that declined to pause enforcement of the new California law.
Large social media companies are required by law to publish reports detailing their content moderation procedures, in addition to providing information on the quantity of “offensive posts” they have removed and the methods used to do so.
Musk filed a lawsuit last year to overturn the law on the grounds that it infringed upon First Amendment rights to free speech.
In response to requests for comment on the ruling, X and its attorneys did not immediately respond.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered subordinate courts to reconsider whether Texas and Florida’s social media content moderation laws violated the First Amendment.
Judge William Shubb of the U.S. District Court in Sacramento denied X’s request to have the California law blocked in December, stating that the law was not “unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law.”
To justify the state’s goal of forcing social media companies to be open about their moderation policies and practices, the appeals court disagreed, holding that the law’s requirements were “more extensive than necessary.”
The panel ordered the lower court to examine whether the law’s content moderation provision can be separated from other sections.
