Florida's new Stop Social Media Censorship Act almost certainly violates the US Constitution and Section 230, and will likely be struck down in court
will it work? Josiah Motley / KnowTechie : Florida has a new bill that bans social media companies from blocking Florida politicians Tweets: Caitlin Kelly / @caitlin__kelly : “This law looks like a political freebie...You get to pander, and nothing bad happens, because there's no chance this will survive in court.” @GiladEdelman talked to some folks about Florida's new social media law and uh, they are not impressed! https://www.wired.com/... Brian MD / @bone00afide : This will get thrown out of court. The law will never see the light of day... But first, Florida taxpayers will have to fork over millions in attorney's fees so @GovRonDeSantis can appease his orange-skinned boss in Doral. https://twitter.com/... Caitlin Kelly / @caitlin__kelly : @GiladEdelman this story does not even go into the bill's carveout for companies that run theme parks (lmao). that did not stop be from thinking, “what if facebook was moved to open an amusement park” all day 🤡 Gilad Edelman / @giladedelman : “This is so obviously unconstitutional, you wouldn't even put it on an exam.” https://www.wired.com/... Gilad Edelman / @giladedelman : @patrick_hruby @caitlin__kelly Indeed! “Florida's new social media law could be a nice little bullet point on his resume. Ultimately, though, it's just another piece of content.” Patrick Hruby / @patrick_hruby : @caitlin__kelly @GiladEdelman Governance as content creation imo See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Florida's governor signed the bill into law in early May, and reporting on the final text shows fines for platforms that ban political candidates — with a carve-out exempting companies that own theme parks, a detail critics read as tailor-made lobbying relief (the New York Times breakdown). Wired's piece lands between signing and enforcement, collecting legal experts' consensus that the law collides with both the First Amendment and Section 230.
That consensus was tested fast: within days, industry groups representing Google and Facebook filed suit calling it a "frontal assault on the First Amendment" (the industry lawsuit), and Texas moved to pass its own version targeting platforms with 50M+ users (Texas's copycat bill). The dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear both states' cases together.
First-order effects
- Facebook, Twitter, and other covered platforms face per-candidate fines under Florida's law unless they win an injunction — which the industry lawsuit filed days later was designed to obtain before enforcement began.
- Florida taxpayers fund the defense of a statute its own drafters' critics describe as legally dead on arrival, since the state must litigate it through federal court.
Second-order effects
- Texas's near-identical bill shows the litigation outcome sets a template either way: if Florida's law survives even temporarily, other legislatures copy it; if courts strike it down quickly, the cost of imitation rises.
- The theme-park exemption pressures other large employers of lobbyists to seek carve-outs in future platform-regulation bills, shifting the battleground from the law's principle to its exemptions list.
Third-order effects
- With the Supreme Court taking up both the Florida and Texas statutes, the eventual rulings will define whether states can compel platform moderation decisions at all — the constitutional boundary for every subsequent state-level speech bill.
- If statehouses keep passing laws they expect to lose in court, platform-governance policy increasingly becomes symbolic signaling paid for by taxpayers rather than enforceable regulation.
The trend: Republican-led states are racing to legislate platform moderation rules they expect to be struck down, betting the real contest is the Supreme Court precedent the resulting lawsuits produce.