Elon Musk's X Corp Sues California For Social Media Transparency Rules

X Corp, suing the state government of California. (photo: platform X)

X Corp, a social media platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, sued California on Friday 8 September over a state law setting new transparency rules for social media companies, requiring them to publish their policies in monitoring disinformation, harassment, hate speech, and extremism.

X, the social media platform, said that a law known as the 587 Assembly Act violates their right to free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the California state constitution.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Sacramento, California, X said that the law's "true goal" was to urge social media companies to remove content deemed unpleasant by the state.

In this way, California is forcing companies to adopt state views on issues of political controversy, "a form of forced speech itself," X said.

After buying Twitter last October, Musk, who described himself as the absoluteist of free speech, fired many employees in charge of monitoring and content settings, and returned some of the accounts previously banned by management.

The Anti-Ffiction League and the Center for Countering Digital Hate have documented an increase in the volume of hate speech in X targeting Jews, blacks, gay men and trans-genders since Musk took over.

Musk, the richest person in the world, also runs electric car company Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta's Office, which enforces state law, said it would respond to the complaint in court.

AB 587 requires social media companies with gross annual earnings of at least 100 million US dollars (Rp 1.5 trillion) to issue half-year reports explaining their content moderation practices, and providing data on the number of posts they don't like and how they are handled.

The law also requires companies to provide copies of the terms and conditions of their services. Failure to comply with the law risks civil fines of up to 15,000 US dollars (Rp229.8 million) per violation per day.

Gavin Newsom, California's Democratic governor, signed the bill in September last year, saying the state would not allow social media to be used as a tool to spread hatred and disinformation.

Musk, who has fired thousands of employees after buying Twitter, and on Monday 4 September blamed critics, including ADL, for a 60% decrease in US advertising revenue.

In a recent interview, AJ Brown, who resigned in June as head of brand security and advertising quality X, said that the policy changes adopted by Musk limited the appearance of disliked posts on X rather than removing them made it difficult to convince advertisers that the platform was safe.