Babylon Bee sues California AG to stop social media 'censorship' law: 'They get it wrong on purpose'

The Babylon Bee’s Seth Dillon revealed in a Substack article on Wednesday that his site, among others, is suing California Attorney General Rob Bonta, D, to prevent the enforcement of a social media law passed last year.

In September, California successfully passed bill AB 587 which requires social media companies to submit reports to the state by Jan. 2024 regarding their terms of service, content categories, data relating to violations of terms of services and guidelines on addressing violations on their sites.

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., celebrated the bill at the time for providing "much-needed transparency and accountability" to social media, Dillon insisted the focus instead is on censorship.

"They’re claiming it’s just about ‘transparency.’ That’s not true. This is a censorship bill, not a transparency bill," Dillon wrote.

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He cited a quote from Newsom reading, "California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country."

Dillon also laid out his argument for why efforts by Big Tech to suppress "hate and disinformation" are often misleading.

"It’s a good thing when people are allowed to speak freely. It’s a bad thing when Big Tech and the government work together to decide what we’re allowed to say. Why? Because they often get it wrong. Even worse, they get it wrong on purpose. As I said in my testimony before Congress, censorship guards the narrative, not the truth. In fact, it guards the narrative at the expense of the truth," Dillon wrote. 

He continued, "In today’s post-truth, anti-reality world, describing a male person as a man is considered ‘hateful conduct.’ If Big Tech is tasked by the state with eliminating hateful or misinformative content, they’ll stuff everything they don’t like into those categories, including opinions, jokes, and even factual statements. We’ve already experienced it first hand. We need laws that prohibit viewpoint discrimination, not laws that compel it under threat of penalties (and under the guise of good-faith content moderation)."

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The 31-page complaint alleged that the law could potentially violate both the First and Fourteenth Amendment because of its broad terminology.

"AB 587 does not have any legitimate sweep because its unconstitutional applications outweigh the limited number of applications to cases of speech which fall outside the scope of the First Amendment," the complaint read.

"The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits state laws that either do not contain enough specificity and direction for a person of ordinary intelligence to know what is required or do not provide explicit standards," it continued. "AB 587 includes numerous broad, vague, and ambiguous terms included but not limited to by definitions of terms like ‘hate speech,’ ‘racism,’ ‘extremism,’ ‘radicalization,’ ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘foreign political interference.’"  

The social network Minds and podcaster Tim Pool are also included as plaintiffs for the lawsuit.

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Though Dillon was uncertain about the future of the case, he hoped it would provide an obstacle for the law.

"We’re asking a federal district court to block enforcement of the law," Dillon wrote.