Judge dismisses X’s lawsuit over California moderation law

A California court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from X Corp over California’s moderation law. X claims that the law conflicts with freedom of expression, but the judge did not agree.

In September, X sued the state of California. Under the regional moderation law, social media companies like X are required to release a report twice a year showing how they tackle disinformation. X claims that this so-called Assembly Bill 587 violates the right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. That is why X wants the law to be scrapped.

However, the judge decided on Thursday that the social media platform’s complaint is unfounded. “Although the reporting requirement appears to place a substantial compliance burden on social media companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unwarranted or unnecessarily burdensome in the context of the First Amendment,” Judge William Shubb said, according to Reuters. X has not yet responded to the decision.

Various governments ask X to enforce more against the spread of disinformation and hate speech. The Digital Services Act, or DSA, came into effect in the European Union at the end of August; which obliges the platform to do so.

X owner Elon Musk has in the past repeatedly promised that the platform will comply with DSA legislation, including with European Commissioner Thierry Breton. However, after acquiring the former Twitter in October 2022, Musk fired many employees responsible for content moderation on the platform. In addition, X left a voluntary European collaboration to combat disinformation in May, it wrote Time magazine at the time.