[perihelions]

Even I can see the obvious overreach—notwithstanding that I'm on the side maximally distant from X's politics. It doesn't matter if it's falsehoods, racism, or advocacy of violence: California has no legitimate interest in regulating online speech. That's expressly prohibited by the US Constitution. It has no legitimate interest in mandating statistical data-collection about online speech, either: because there's no legitimate government function that data serves and informs. (You have no legitimate business casing the bank's vaults because there's no plausible lawful action you can do with the information you're gathering. That pile of money doesn't belong to you).

If you're having trouble sympathizing with the civics because the litigant, X, is horrible, and X users are horrible—just flip to a hypothetical where it's the government position that's horrible. Like so: "the DeSantis government of Florida has mandated social media platforms disclose statistics about LGBT content on their platforms". Does this make it easier to see how (0) indirect laws about speech (i.e. mandatory statistics) have direct chilling effects on that speech, and (1) "mere data-collection" about speech doesn't apparently serve any legitimate government function? (Political signalling isn't a legitimate government function). And: suppose the mandatory forms you have to fill out for DeSantis Transparency describe the LGBT content field in offensive, homophobic language. Could you then consider the X attorneys' argument that filling out forms can be an unconstitutional form of compelled speech?

[kardianos]

It sounds like I disagree with your politics, but I completly agree with your analysis. Looking at the procedure and requiring Procedural Symmetry, would you agree with the procedure even if it was "used against you"? That is the foundation of rule of law.

(FYI, regarding DeSantis, I've never seen him describe LGB as offensive. I have seen his government describe literal porn, some literally describing pedophile behavior, in elementary school libraries as bad. He provides examples of the exact thing he is against and I've never seen him try to overreach that principle. I also agree that literal porn should not be in elementary schools.)

[xg15]

> It has no legitimate interest in mandating statistical data-collection about online speech, either: because there's no legitimate government function that data serves and informs.

Not sure if this is an actual legal argument, but I don't see at all how the latter follows from the former - I think it would in fact be really bad if it did.

Statistical data collection isn't just necessary for the government to implement its current obligations, it's also necessary for policymakers (i.e. parliaments) to know which laws should be changed and which new government functions might be necessary.

I you don't like this for partisan reasons, it's easy to flip this around as well: Imagine some hypothetical federal government going all in on "no borders, no nations" and making it illegal for states to stop people at the US-Mexican border at all. By your argument, it would also automatically become illegal to even just monitor the border and count how many illegal immigrants are crossing.

Then later, when opposition and advocacy groups want to challange the federal government's policy, the government party can just say "the policy seems fine, we don't have any data that would show any sudden influx of illegal immigrants, so why should we change it?"

> the DeSantis government of Florida has mandated social media platforms disclose statistics about LGBT content on their platforms

There is an important distinction between data that makes someone personally identifiable and data that does not.

Not an expert in US domestic politics, but I believe that progressives don't generally have a problem with broad statistical data collection about marginalized groups - on the contrary, they often use this data for their own arguments, i.e. to show how unequal the distribution of men and women in leadership positions is.

What is a problem is any kind of data that would allow the government (or anyone else really) to individually identify persons from some group. (This includes "pseudonymous" data and very fine-grained statistics, because those can often be deanonymized)

So:

"How many % of SF's population are gay?" -> cool

"How many % of the tenants in Christopher Street are gay?" -> not cool

[perihelions]

- "Not sure if this is an actual legal argument, but I don't see at all how the latter follows from the former - I think it would in fact be really bad if it did."

There's balancing tests like the one in strict scrutiny [0] (IANAL/not actually sure if strict scrutiny applies here: it's just one example of a constitutional test relevant to the First Amendment). This weighs if a law that's potentially unconstitutional serves some important, real purpose that outweighs the tension it imposes on constitutional rights—a "compelling state interest" in the strict scrutiny test.

And there is tension with the First Amendment here. A law that merely "monitors" speech has a tangible chilling effect on the speech that's singled out for surveillance.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny

[mpalmer]

The parent comment is using the word legitimate in terms of how the Constitution limits government power, not in the sense of the political beliefs of whoever won the last election.

[xg15]

even the constitution can be amended - or can have widely differing interpretations as the surpreme court is now helpfully demonstating.

[mpalmer]

Yes, but it's not a distinction without a difference.

[fluidcruft]

It seems pretty obvious to me that the speech of Twitter's users isn't Twitter's speech. Particularly since Twitter doesn't want to be held legally responsible for it.

[intended]

The current placement of our legal mores vis-a-vis a post Social Media world is incongruous.

It is a crying shame, that we don’t have MORE information, given that everything is on a data base.

If we want to have the least intrusive moderation, we want to actually change minds, and have an actual working “marketplace of ideas”, you need this information.

The concern about a bad actor who decides to impose “transparency” is fatuous - they are going to do it anyway, and they are going to do it exactly the manner you are concerned - with an eye to stifle freedoms.

The point of free speech, is not served by preventing transparency. A market overwhelmed by manipulations, virulence, spam, monopolies - isn’t a working market place.

Transparency will help with figuring out what interventions work, and how effectively.

It would be a way to figure out whether social media is a boon or a bane.

Thats the kind of estimation that ends malign arguments hiding behind an unbounded, flexible definition of free speech.

[heinrich5991]

> "the DeSantis government of Florida has mandated social media platforms disclose statistics about LGBT content on their platforms"

> content moderation policies and statistics

Can you explain how the law would require them to provide statistics on LGBT content? From the article, it seems like they'd only need to provide statistics on moderating LGBT content, which seems… OK? Also they'd need to publish their stance on LGBT content, which would be "we don't police it".

[mpalmer]

Moderation of online speech is speech; they're still casing the bank vault.

[heinrich5991]

> they're still casing the bank vault.

I don't understand the meaning of this part.

> Moderation of online speech is speech

AFAICT, they're not being forced to moderate. They're being forced to say how they approach moderation. "Not at all" being a valid answer, as far as I understand it.

[mpalmer]

Forcing them to answer a question like that is compelled speech about constitutionally protected behavior. It doesn't matter how easy the question is to answer.

What is the government's interest in getting this question answered?

[dotnet00]

It's kind of like being asked by your employer to provide statistics on how often you insult a specific coworker behind their back.

They can promise all they want that the info won't be used against you, but it's obvious that they wouldn't be asking if they didn't intend to do anything with it. Thus it would limit how often you insult that person.

[Scarblac]

Unfriendly states use social media to destabilise the US. It should be the role of the state to defend against that, not private companies.

[unyttigfjelltol]

From a quote in the article:

> X Corp. is being forced to adopt the State’s politically-charged terms

This is a universal problem around government reporting requirements. How many times have I been asked (indirectly by the government) to declare my "race" and not been presented with the obvious option of "human"?

So, X seems to have identified a sliver of controversy in what I think is otherwise an appropriate topic of public concern. The reason I think it's an appropriate topic is because Section 230 immunizes the supposed expressive content of X's editorial policy so ... X shouldn't have as free rein to run that program in secret according to unknown whims.

[mpalmer]

> How many times have I been asked (indirectly by the government) to declare my "race" and not been presented with the obvious option of "human"?

This particular statement by X doesn't get at the root of the legal matter at issue. Statistics about constitutionally protected behavior are not analogous to statistics dealing with demographic information.

> The reason I think it's an appropriate topic is because Section 230 immunizes the supposed expressive content of X's editorial policy so ... X shouldn't have as free rein to run that program in secret according to unknown whims.

They're immune from liability related to how they moderate content, therefore they have to disclose information to the government about how they moderate content? That sounds an awful lot like they're back to being liable.

[perihelions]

- "Section 230 immunizes the supposed expressive content of X's editorial policy"

The First Amendment protects the expressive content of X's editorial policy.

- "X shouldn't have as free rein to run that program in secret according to unknown whims"

The First Amendment protects secretive editorial policies run according to editors' whims.

[cherry_tree]

The first amendment doesn’t define a corporation as a person endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.

[Zigurd]

In case you haven't noticed, saying in an ad "This pill will get you laid" is not in fact protected by the 1A. Commercial speech is regulated.