Andrew L. Carter Jr.

“ Here, the Hateful Conduct Law requires social media networks to disseminate a message about the definition of “hateful conduct” or hate speech—a fraught and heavily debated topic today. Even though the Hateful Conduct Law ostensibly does not dictate what a social media website’s response to a complaint must be and does not even require that the networks respond to any complaints or take down offensive material, the dissemination of a policy about “hateful conduct” forces Plaintiffs to publish a message with which they disagree. ”

“ Social media websites are publishers and curators of speech, and their users are engaged in speech by writing, posting, and creating content. Although the law ostensibly is aimed at social media networks, it fundamentally implicates the speech of the networks’ users by mandating a policy and mechanism by which users can complain about other users’ protected speech. ”

“ This protection extends to speech which the government may seek to limit because it is offensive or insulting. See R.A.V, 505 U.S. at 391 (“The First Amendment does not permit [the government] to impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on disfavored subjects.”) Even regulations that seek to regulate speech “that insult [s] , or provoke [s] violence, on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender” have been found to run afoul of the First Amendment because they constitute content and viewpoint-based regulation of protected speech. ”