A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has taken Elon Musk's and Xitter's side in a case concerning a new California law that mandates broad disclosures for social media platforms about their content moderation practices.

Musk scored a win this week in an appeal over a California law governing content-moderation policies and practices for social media companies, with a three-judge panel — two Republican appointees, and one Democratic appointee — overturning a lower court's ruling.

Musk and Xitter filed the suit last fall, saying that the California law, AB 587, violated the First Amendment as well as California's own constitution, effectively dictating what the state considers acceptable or unacceptable speech. The law demands that companies make regular reports to the state about it handles various types of problematic speech, and that they be transparent with the public about what their content moderation policies are.

A US District Court judge, Sacramento-based Judge William Shubb, ruled in late December that the law, which aims to tamp down hate speech online, did not violate the First Amendment.

"While the reporting requirement does appear to place a substantial compliance burden on social medial companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law," Shubb wrote in his decision.

The Ninth Circuit panel disagreed, with Judge Milan Smith writing for the majority, "[AB 587] require[s] a company to recast its content-moderation practices in language prescribed by the State, implicitly opining on whether and how certain controversial categories of content should be moderated."

Smith goes on to write that, "No matter how a social media company chooses to moderate such content, the company will face backlash from its users and the public," and Smith argues that the California law oversteps in forcing a company to choose sides in culture wars or political fights.

"Even a pure ‘transparency’ measure, if it compels non-commercial speech, is subject to strict scrutiny," Smith writes.

This ruling, of course, seems to assume that there is no moral difference between racist or otherwise hateful speech coming coming from the right or alt-right, and anti-racist speech calling someone a Nazi, or something similar. Or that it's somehow problematic under the First Amendment for a company to take a stand on transphobia or homophobia, for instance.

Xitter's attorneys had argued that it is "difficult to reliably define" what hate speech is — though is that really true?

The appellate judges further seemed to agree with Musk and his lawyers that forcing companies to "reveal [their] policy opinion about contentious issues, such as what constitutes hate speech or misinformation" is an overreach by the government.

As the Chronicle reports, the 3-0 ruling was joined by Smith, a George W. Bush appointee; Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee; and Judge Anthony Johnstone, a Biden appointee. The full decision can be found here.

X's corporate global affairs account called the ruling "not just a victory for our platform, but also for free speech nationwide."

The California Attorney General's Office, which argued the state's side in the case, said it was "reviewing the opinion and will respond appropriately in court."

Attorney General Rob Bonta's office previously said in a filing, "Enabling consumers to inform themselves about platforms’ own content-moderation processes … without ever dictating what those content-moderation processes must be — enables consumers to make the best decisions for themselves and for their children."

The ruling sends AB 587 back to the lower court, ordering it to issue an injunction on most aspects of the law, and to decide whether any of the law's edicts can be preserved based on this opinion.

Besides X, the other major social media company who would likely be affected by this law, Meta, didn't seem to voice any loud objections, and submitted its first disclosures to the state under the law in December. Meta has long had strong content moderation policies and processes for removing hate speech, though the company has come under fire, especially from conservatives, for showing bias in this regard.

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