On Monday, February 24, 2025, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and X Corp. (formerly Twitter) agreed to a stipulation for final judgment regarding X's lawsuit against the landmark California social media transparency law ("AB 587"). The stipulation marks an agreed settlement between the two parties following more than a year of ongoing litigation.
Over a year ago, I wrote about a federal court's decision to deny X Corp.'s motion to enjoin enforcement of AB 587 - a lot has happened since then.
What Happened
As a brief recap:
- Sept. 2022: California AB 587 was signed into
law, requiring social media companies (with +$100 million gross
annual revenue) to file certain public
reports, detailing their content moderation practices and
disclosing certain metrics as to how violations of their terms of
service are addressed.
- Sept. 2023: X Corp. filed a complaint against
the Attorney General, asserting that AB 587 violates federal law,
such as the First Amendment and the Communications Decency
Act.
- Jan. 2024: A federal court denied X Corp.'s
motion for preliminary injunction of AB 587, notably rejecting
X Corp.'s First Amendment claims.
- Sept. 2024: Things were looking up for X Corp.
on appeal – the Ninth Circuit sided with X Corp. and held
that the preliminary injunction should have been granted, as
certain requirements of AB 587 likely violate the First
Amendment.
- Jan. 2025: X Corp. and the Attorney General reached a settlement, resulting in the recent joint stipulation which permanently enjoins enforcement of a portion of AB 587 due to violating the First Amendment.
Why It Matters
The stipulation states that enforcement of subsections (a)(3), (a)(4)(A), and (a)(5) of the California Business & Professions Code, Section 22677 (the codification of AB 587) are permanently enjoined, on the basis of violating the First Amendment. X Corp.'s other claims that AB 587 violated other federal laws were dismissed with prejudice.
These sections are key requirements of the semi-annual reporting requirements of AB 587. In particular, these sections spell out obligations for covered social media companies to provide detailed descriptions of their definitions of certain categories of content, such as "hate speech or racism," "extremism or radicalization," and "disinformation or misinformation," and the existing policies intended to address such content.
In addition, subsection (a)(5) required a detailed accounting of certain total numbers for actions companies had taken in relation with certain content, such as the total number of content "flagged" or "actioned" during the reporting period. These numbers were also required to be "disaggregated" into various subcategories, such as the type of content (posts, comments, profiles, etc.), the media of the content (text, video, audio, etc.), and how this content was flagged/actioned (such as through users or content moderation tools) – to name a few.
What Comes Next
Although important sections have been enjoined, AB 587 is still effective.
Covered social media companies are still required to file their semi-annual Terms of Service Reports (with the next one due April 1, 2025). However, this injunction significantly lightens the load of AB 587's reporting requirements moving forward.
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