Disney gets special “theme park” exception to Florida’s anti-tech bill | Hacker News Reader

Disney gets special “theme park” exception to Florida’s anti-tech bill

arstechnica.com

44 pointspseudolus23 comments

Most of the article is about the bill itself, and essentially the Republican law makers’ efforts to enshroud in law what they perceive to be slights against them.

The exemption for Disney is blatant and embarrassing pandering. It doesn’t surprise me, but it’s very clear Who holds the cards, and who’s paying the bills.

Disney has always been a special case in Florida.

Disney World is located in its own legal jurisdiction, largely separate from county and state, that it de facto controls: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_Dist...

The exemption would also apply to Comcast, as owner of Universal Studios. It'd be funny to watch Facebook and Twitter get into a bidding war for SeaWorld... or, alternatively, buy their own patches of swampland and build some roller-coasters.

Not that this has any chance of being upheld, of course.

>Not that this has any chance of being upheld, of course.

The author of that article seems to not have a very deep understanding of court precedent. I wouldn't count it out as unconstitutional so quickly.

https://reason.com/2021/02/04/florida-gov-ron-desantis-wants...

"In a 1980 decision, Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, the Supreme Court ruled that California could mandate that Pruneyard allow protesters to engage in political advocacy there, even though it was private property. The mall wasn't being ordered to host particular messages, but rather serve as a carrier of a type of communication, which was political petitioning in this case."

That's quite a different matter. Free speech protections are not a "get out of punishment for all other misbehavior" totem.

I was thinking preempted by Section 230 is the easier call (and Volokh agrees, though he sees an opening that I don't).

Is this related to Disney deciding it needed to fire Gina Carano from Mando?

Is deplatforming in terms of a streaming video service firing an actor over political beliefs that are considered detrimental to the brand?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/heres-why-star-wars-the-mandal...

That’s really insightful. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how the figured Disney Plus was relevant here.

Disney World is in Florida. Disney pays a lot of money to Florida politicians.

What’s stopping Facebook from buying a laser tag joint and becoming exempt since they would own an entertainment venue?

They will probably add a clause that removes this exemption and add a new clause that exempts companies with names starting with a "D".

Dataland is exempted.

The bill [1] states that the exemption requires ownership and operation of "a theme park or entertainment complex as defined in s. 509.013". S. 509.013 [2] uses this definition:

> "a complex comprised of at least 25 contiguous acres owned and controlled by the same business entity and which contains permanent exhibitions and a variety of recreational activities and has a minimum of 1 million visitors annually."

[1]: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/7072/BillText/e1/...

[2]: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...

Twitterland sounds interesting. Facebook Kingdom not so much ;)

Replace the laser trigger with a Like button and they’re all set.

In before Facebook and Twitter open theme parks in Florida.

...and Google does a hostile takeover of Disney (probably less antitrust issues there than with Comcast, who would be a little cheaper.)

This is such a Florida thing to do. It is hilarious. That’s why Florida will not be a tech hub

Perhaps a somewhat naive question... could someone explain how this could be enforced against companies that are not based in Florida?

The companies would fall under Florida jurisdiction if they have any presence in the state like data centers.

Wouldn't it be enough if the website is accessible from Florida to count as doing business with Floridians?

A real "fuck you" would be for FB and Twitter to display "This website is not available in Florida because of your state government's laws". Hah, could they bring down that government that way? That would open another box of madness...

(I hate Zuck and Twitter, but Florida state government are bigger scumbags)

Please explain. What state government is not full of scumbags? Is your state government devoid of scumbags?

Is that OP's point? It seems like they answered the question about jurisdiction...

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