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Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York, arguing that its new anti-hate speech law aimed at social media companies is unconstitutional.
The X owner has taken exception to the Stop Hiding Hate Act, otherwise known as Bill S895B, arguing in the suit that it violates basic free speech rights as guaranteed under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the bill into law in December, requiring tech firms to publish their terms of service and file regular reports outlining the steps they have taken to moderate extreme content, hate speech, disinformation, and other harmful material being shared on their platforms.
It finally came into effect this week, but Musk is contesting its stipulations on the basis that they would require X to reveal “highly sensitive information” about its practices, also opposing its potential $15,000 per violation per day fines.
The Act was authored by New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and State Assemblymember Grace Lee, in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League, to compel tech giants to take greater accountability for disturbing content hosted and shared across their networks.
The authors dismissed the objections raised in X’s suit and called it an attempt to “use the First Amendment as a shield against providing New Yorkers with much-needed transparency.”
Hoylman-Sigal and Lee reportedly rejected an approach from Musk’s company last year to discuss the bill and suggest amendments, saying they did not believe it was acting in good faith and would only seek to weaken its provisions.
“Now more than ever, with the rise in political violence and threats emanating from the spread of hate speech and disinformation by President Trump and Elon Musk, New Yorkers deserve to know what social media companies like X are doing (or not doing) to stop the spread of hatred and misinformation on their platform,” the duo said this week.
X has also launched a legal challenge against an equivalent law in California, an approach consistent with Musk’s efforts to reduce content moderation on X, formerly Twitter, since he acquired the company in 2022.
As The Guardian has noted, while Musk styles himself as a “free speech absolutist,” he has a track record of using his platform to attack media outlets that report unfavorably about his activities.
Most recently, he has rebuked The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for reporting on his alleged drug use while working alongside President Donald Trump in the White House. This relationship recently came to a spectacularly acrimonious end, with the two billionaires trading insults on X and Truth Social, respectively.
