The state of California is now facing a new lawsuit filed by Elon Musk.
In the legal action, the billionaire explained why he is against the new media transparency law.
California Faces Lawsuit Filed by Elon Musk
Tesla head Elon Musk leaves after giving a statement to the press as he arrives to have a look at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 03, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany.
In 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom decided to sign Assembly Bill No. 587 (AB587) into law.
This new regulation requires social media giants to have more transparency by disclosing their policies on hate speech, disinformation, and other harmful content, as reported by PC Mag.
Aside from this, AB587 also states that online platforms should also share how they enforce these policies to the state of California.
Since the requirements of the content moderation law are quite strict, Elon Musk is against it. As part of his efforts against AB587, the billionaire filed a lawsuit in the federal court in Sacramento, California.
The Guardian reported that the complaint claims that California's media transparency law has a hidden intent, claiming that the "true" goal of AB587 is to pressure social media firms to delete content that officials find objectionable.
Musk explained that the law clearly violates the First Amendment and the California Constitution.
The billionaire added that the state is forcing companies to adopt its views on politically charged issues, which he considers a "form of compelled speech in and itself."
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California Defends Media Transparency Law
In this illustration photo taken on July 18, 2022 Elon Musk's reply Tweet to Parag Agrawal, the CEO of Twitter, showing a poop emoji is displayed on the screen of a smartphone with Musk Twitter page in the background in Los Angeles.
California State Assembly member Jesse Samuel Gabriel, the politician who authored the bill, defended the state's media transparency law.
He said that if X (formerly known as Twitter) has nothing to hide, then the social media giant doesn't need to object to the bill.
"Assembly Bill 587 is a pure transparency measure that simply requires companies to be upfront about if and how they are moderating content," said Gabriel.
"It in no way requires any specific content moderation policies - which is why it passed with strong, bipartisan support," he added.
While Elon Musk is objecting to the new content moderation law, many organizations claim that hate speech and other harmful content in X are worsening.
Civil rights groups, such as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that they identified drastic increases in the volume of hate speech on X.
These hateful posts are usually targeting gays, transgenders, Jews, as well as Black people. CCDH and ADL said that hate speech on X worsened ever since Elon Musk took over the social media site.
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