Last year, X won its fight to block a California law requiring social media companies to report on efforts to remove hate speech and other kinds of content the state deemed harmful.
Now, X has sued to stop New York from enforcing a law that it claims is a "carbon copy" of California's—which resulted in a settlement blocking the California law after a court ruled it likely violated the First Amendment.
In a complaint filed Tuesday, X revealed that the New York lawsuit came after New York lawmakers rejected X's attempts to reconcile its social media law with the California ruling. Not only did lawmakers refuse to acknowledge free speech issues that X seemingly views as settled, but in a letter declining to meet with X, they also called out X owner Elon Musk's controversial personal history of posting as a reason to refuse to engage with X.
"Unfortunately, we must refuse your request because of the disturbing record on the part of your client, X, and in particular, its owner, Elon Musk, that threatens the foundations of our democracy," New York state senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and state assemblymember Grace Lee wrote in the letter.
The letter noted that "Musk has personally used the platform to promote transphobic, antisemitic, and anti-immigrant ideologies, as well as share memes and incendiary comments containing misinformation about violent protests" and "misinformation about elections and political figures in the United States." Musk's harmful posts, they said, "are almost never tagged with the user generated 'community notes,' the main tool for fact checking misinformation on X."
Claiming that the content moderation law would help X users make "informed decisions" based on "types of actions" X takes "with regards to hate speech and misinformation," the lawmakers stressed that "our bill does not ban any speech or restrict any postings online that are not already illegal."