Katelynn Richardson on February 15, 2023
A New York court has blocked a state law designed to censor “hateful conduct” on social media.
Following the Buffalo supermarket shooting in 2022, New York passed a bill requiring social media companies that operate within the state to “maintain mechanisms for reporting hateful conduct” on their platforms. Despite the “well-intentioned goal,” U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. ruled that the First Amendment “protects from state regulation speech that may be deemed ‘hateful.’”
“The Hateful Conduct Law both compels social media networks to speak about the contours of hate speech and chills the constitutionally protected speech of social media users, without articulating a compelling governmental interest or ensuring that the law is narrowly tailored to that goal,” Carter wrote in the decision. “In the face of our national commitment to the free expression of speech, even where that speech is offensive or repugnant, Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction, prohibiting enforcement of the law, is GRANTED.”
In December, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed the lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James challenging the law on behalf of First Amendment scholar and co-founder of The Volokh Conspiracy blog Eugene Volokh, as well as the platforms Rumble and Locals.
The bill defined “hateful conduct” as “the use of a social media network to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.”
“This decision is a big win for the First Amendment,” FIRE Attorney Daniel Ortner said. “Judge Carter correctly concluded that the law would have required websites like the Volokh Conspiracy, Rumble, and Locals to adopt censorship policies for anything the State of New York considers ‘hateful,’ requiring them to endorse the state’s view that such speech is worth singling out for removal.”
“But as Judge Carter noted, the law is written so poorly that it could apply to a post endorsing Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter if a user found either message offensive,” he continued. “And such a vague, overboard, and coercive law offends the First Amendment. This decision ensures that New York cannot turn bloggers into big brother or social media platforms into its speech police.”
Letitia James, Eugene Volokh and Rumble did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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