Speech

The bill is headed to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk and follows a similar bill passed in the Minnesota legislature. If signed, the bill would require “addictive social media platforms” to display about warnings about the potential mental health harms of using of their products. It’s a concept endorsed by former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and many state attorneys general, but has been critiqued by industry stakeholders as a violation of First Amendment rights.

The Elon Musk-run platform alleges the Stop Hiding Hate Act “impermissibly interferes with the First Amendment-protected editorial judgments” of companies like X to decide how to moderate content. Platforms could face fines unless they disclose what X calls “highly sensitive and controversial speech,” which it says the state may not like. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals already blocked parts of a similar California law on First Amendment grounds, following a separate X challenge.

Platforms could soon have to display tobacco-like warning labels, and include links to mental health resources. It’s a concept former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy pushed for on the federal level and that many states backed. It heads to Gov. Tim Walz (D), but VP of litigation Kathleen Farley at tech industry group Chamber of Progress warns signing it would enact “a clear First Amendment violation, and Minnesota would waste millions defending it in court.”

The National Guard arrived in Los Angeles earlier today in a move that hasn’t been seen since 1965, and protests are stretching into the evening. There’s a Bluesky starter pack of LA-based independent journalists providing text and photo updates, plus news outlets and streamer Hasan Piker live on the ground. And demonstrations in several cities are planned for tomorrow, pushing for the release of union leader David Huerta, arrested during the recent aggressive ICE raids.

Khalil, a Columbia student, was arrested by ICE in March over his involvement in pro-Palestine activism despite being a permanent resident. Citing a Cold War-era law, administration officials claimed Khalil’s presence in the country is detrimental to the US’s foreign policy interest.

Literary journal Barrelhouse addresses a gap noted by Justice Samuel Alito in January’s FSC v. Paxton Supreme Court oral arguments. Almost certainly more fun than the still-awaited ruling will be.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction that prevented the law from taking effect while the lower court hears arguments on the merits. The district court didn’t adequately analyze the full scope of platforms the law could apply to, the appeals court says, as required under the Supreme Court’s ruling in an earlier set of cases brought by tech industry group NetChoice.

In February, the Trump administration started turning Associated Press reporters away from media events at the White House after the outlet refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” Now, District Judge Trevor McFadden has ordered the White House to end the practice, spotted Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

Washington Post journalist Will Oremus reports that it advanced out of the House Energy & Commerce Committee today after a Republican majority rejected amendments proposed to mitigate its significant speech problems. It now awaits a vote on the House floor.

It’s one of numerous bills being taken up by the House Energy & Commerce Committee starting at 10AM ET — a well-intentioned proposal that, as I wrote last month and discussed on Decoder, is a dead end for fighting nonconsensual sexual imagery and a threat to free speech. Fight for the Future is currently running a petition against it and has a tool for finding your representative (if you live in the US) too.

Texas state representative Stan Gerdes bought into some years-old viral disinformation with the new Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying In Education or FURRIES Act, which — among numerous other bans on things that could give children “a belief that non-human behaviors are societally acceptable” — would penalize Texas kids for making animal noises or wearing cat ear headbands in school, notes Chron’s Gwen Howerton. And no, I don’t know what the ‘S’ stands for, either.

Associate editor and columnist Ruth Marcus has left the Post after it refused to publish a column “respectfully dissenting” from owner Jeff Bezos’ new limits on opinion coverage, reports The New York Times’ Ben Mullin and Semafor’s Max Tani. Marcus writes that the new policy “threatens to break the trust of readers that columnists are writing what they believe, not what the owner has deemed acceptable.” It’s also reportedly lost the Post at least 75,000 subscribers.