Tech groups sue Florida over content moderation law | Hacker News Reader

Tech groups sue Florida over content moderation law

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55 pointsenraged_camel106 comments

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Others?

The most hilarious part of this law is that there is a specific exception carved out for any company that "owns and operates a theme park or entertainment complex". You would think oh, maybe there's some hidden complicated reasoning for this? Nope. The sponsor of the bill literally said he wants to make sure Disney+ "isn't caught up in this".

It's crazy to see such blatant, open corruption in American politics.

A commoner caught stealing money is subject to prison, but a politician blatantly wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer resources on frivolous laws and ensuing lawsuits is hailed by nearly half the population.

Not even politician. Compare the penalties of stealing $100 from the till vs payroll theft.

In California, stealing something worth $950 and under is a misdemeanor. Theft is skyrocketing and businesses are leaving. Walgreens has closed 17 stores in San Francisco alone in the last 5 years. They recently uncovered a theft ring that had over $8 million in stolen products. Apparently, some people, enough people, take advantage of compassionate laws to the detriment of everyone else. So, I guess it depends on where you compare that $100 theft.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/Out-of-co...

Something tells me that a theft ring doesn't get to $8 million without anyone taking more than $1K. And even if they did, I personally don't see why society should foot the bill for prosecuting and incarcerating someone over a stolen $100 from a private corporation that's probably insured anyway.

What they do is have many people steal stuff under $950, every day. It adds up over time. They usually steal things with a long shelf life and then resell it on ebay, amazon and other places. It's an organized theft ring.

> that's probably insured anyway

That's a pretty poor attitude, imho. You're ok with stealing things as long as they're "insured?" Who pays the insurance, and what are insurance rates based on? Insurance companies are looking at these multi-million dollar losses and jacking up the rates in these areas, or not covering certain areas at all. The end result is businesses are closing, and the community is losing access to various stores because of it. So, who's really benefiting from this?

The under $950 thing is very spurious. It really should be “we won’t go after anything under 100k” because that’s essentially what it is. Things at the 10k market are routinely stolen and not reported because cops won’t do anything. “Fill out a form. Thanks. You have video of the perp doing it and their name, address, social security number, and the last four digits of their credit card? Sorry, we can’t do anything.”

If you have anything of value just insure it and put a low deductible on it. Cost of doing business in these times.

Things are so much worse...

A friend of mine runs a Equestrian Academy. A couple of weeks ago-- this person who rents a place on the premises invited her "son" to squat on the property.

The thing about horses is this-- they're pack animals. You have to be calm around them because, if you excite one horse. all the horses will see that excited guy, assume there's danger, and start running. This is a life or death thing. A spooked horse will trample people, buck, etc.

Every "horse person" knows this. It's the first thing you learn about horses.

So this individual-- makes a habit of driving his car fast up and down the entrance of the ranch. This spooked a horse and nearly got a little girl killed (who was riding it).

The second time this happened-- someone happened to be driving down that entrance and was doing the right thing-- going under 10mph. This person parks his car and then assaults the driver and another person who tried to break up the fight.

Police were called, and, "Nothing can be done." Despite 4 witnesses. The dude is back squatting on the property after a couple of days.

In my county-- A guy drove a stolen car into a Porsche-- stole the keys for the cars-- stole a Porsche-- and was released on 10k bail. Literally, a DUI is 50k bail.

Societal order itself is at issue.

Theft and property loss isn’t a loss of life (usually). Also, eyewitness testimony is very bs. I was run into by a car and people on the street started saying it was my fault when the police showed up. I wasn’t the same race as the driver and the folks on the street. (I was blown away how blatant that was) Thankfully, the police looked at the crash and it was super obvious I wasn’t at fault. Imagine if cops listened to the “eyewitnesses” in that case even though it was blatantly obvious? I could’ve been held liable to pay for the other driver’s car and any spurious medical claims they’d start making.

Blame your mayor, sheriff, and state government (who are all - unsurprisingly - voted in by locals). They’re the ones setting the agenda.

Crimes of financial impact are generally seen as “should’ve bought insurance” type of situations. The agenda is set by those with money and those with money have insurance - so these things don’t bother them unless it’s egregiously expensive.

Seems like a cheap alternative would be for a group of companies to co-own a "theme park". Fight stupid with stupid

Here is what they would have to accomplish:

From the new law:

https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Documents/loaddoc.as...

  > The term does not include any information service, system, Internet search engine, or access software provider operated by a company that owns and operates a theme park or entertainment complex as defined in s. 509.013.

https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2015/509.013

  > “Theme park or entertainment complex” means 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.

Twitter could kill two birds with one stone and establish a 25 contiguous acre zone filled with recreational activities where visitors rate tweets on whether or not they think it violates the Terms of Service.

I’m imagining each company starting a theme park to get around the law. Microsoft’s would have scary rides like Blue Screen of Death and DLL Hell. Facebook’s rides have people you never want to talk to again trying to start conversations with you, and you have to deflect 10 in a row to win a stuffed animal. Google’s park will shut down their best rides just when people were starting to like them. Apple’s will be sleek and glassy and completely silent — you’ll only be able to hear what’s going on when you put on your AirPods Pro Max 3S.

That last one doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

Hilarious

The cheaper alternative is to sue and have the clearly unconstitutional theater piece thrown out.

Facebook doesn't want to be in the theme park ownership game, but it would be kind of hilarious if they either bought NBCUniversal or just bought Universal Studios theme park out of NBCUniversal.

Or, hell, I bet Merlin Entertainment might be receptive to an offer for Legoland.

Is this any different than, say, California's AB5 though? AB5 is riddled with carve outs but many here call it a fair bill (and I recognize that many, maybe even most here, also call it out for having so many carve outs). Exempting particular segments from regulations seems to be the norm when you're trying to narrowly target a certain industry.

I genuinely don't know a single person who considered AB5 "fair". In fact, the entire reason prop 22 passed was because AB5 is such a disaster.

7 million people with 41 percent of the vote voted against prop 22. Clearly many many people considered it fair.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...

Over $200 million was spent on Prop 22, making it the most expensive measure in CA history. The idea that the results were based on each voter's personal assessment of the fairness of AB5 sounds pretty generous (or naive) when faced with lobbying like this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-uber-and-doordashs-push-....

It's obvious graft because DisneyWorld is in Florida.

So Florida lawmakers implemented a rule that allows someone to sue if they think a social media platform is inconsistently applying their content rules and, without even the slightest hint of irony, have implemented this new rule... inconsistently?

Do as I say, not as I do, I suppose.

Amazon just bought MGM, who owns Universal, so they're safe.

I imagine Amazon was already safe since they don't have a major social media platform do they?

Oh wait, they do have twitch, which probably hits these issues. Huh.

Universal Studios is owned by Comcast, not MGM/Amazon.

The first amendment (emphasis is my understanding of the part most relevant):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

State governments can’t contravene the constitution either, so this applies to the state of Florida too.

Section 230 makes it clear that these companies aren't considered speakers of their user posted content, hence preventing them from moderating it doesn't impose on their free speech since the user posted content isn't considered their speech.

Section 230 can’t modify/restrict/repeal/affect the scope and meaning of the first amendment in any way.

It sounds like his argument is that moderation isn't speech, and the posts on these sites, due to 230, aren't attributable to the would be moderators, therefore the tech companies don't have a right to claim that their first amendment rights have been breached. I'm unsure what the caselaw on site moderation looks like, so i have no idea if the assertion is correct

The tech groups have become the public square. They haven’t realized what that means yet.

Does it mean that the government now gets to start whittling away the first amendment because a minority of the politicians can no longer shout hate speech to the country?

Depends, one year ago FB/Twitter labeled lab-leak discussions as hate speech.

For everyone that is against this law: If in 2028 Mark Zuckerberg decides to run for President, would you be ok with him banning all other candidates from Facebook. He would be the only Presidential candidate that would be allowed to have a Facebook presence. What if he also blocked all posts that were positive about the other candidates?

Would you defend the right of association of Facebook and that Facebook cannot be compelled to support speech it does not want to?

>For everyone that is against this law: If in 2028 Mark Zuckerberg decides to run for President, would you be ok with him banning all other candidates from Facebook.

I'd be okay with it.

>What if he also blocked all posts that were positive about the other candidates?

I'd be okay with it.

Yeah, this would garner so much incredibly negative PR, talk about a self-own. Why would this bother me?

You can be not okay with that AND not okay with this law.

Would a state law fining a social media company (for any/whatever reason the law decides to state) even enforceable?

Yes, unless those laws are unconstitutional, like this lawsuit asserts:

> The groups argue the law, set to go into effect July 1, violates the First Amendment by compelling platforms to host speech they'd otherwise remove.

> They also argue it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment by exempting some companies, and that its vagueness violates the due process clause of the 5th and 14th amendments.

> The groups argue the law, set to go into effect July 1, violates the First Amendment by compelling platforms to host speech they'd otherwise remove.

I'm not an expert on this by any means, but isn't this an admission that these companies act like publishers? Yet they have Section 230 protection?

How does that work? If they're removing legal content, you should be able to sue Twitter for content they leave up, right?

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what Section 230 of the CDA entails[1]:

> Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider"

What Section 230 says is that all providers of interactive computer services are not liable for user content. That's it. It doesn't matter what the interactive computer service does, or publishes or doesn't publish. If you're a provider of an interactive computer service, you're shielded from liability for user uploaded content.

[1] https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

Thanks for the details. I'm curious though, couldn't traditional publications just say their articles are "user content" and absolve themselves of all legal liability, like defamation?

Assuming that content was paid for by the company, either by contractors or employees, I think a court could see through that being called 'user content' pretty easily.

If it's just uncompensated randos...well then it wouldn't be a traditional publication anymore.

Since the work was generated in the course of that employee's duty with the company, I'm not sure why you think the company would be absolved of liability for the content they themselves commissioned. That employee is the company in this capacity.

Yea, that makes sense. I'm wondering how it works with something like TikTok's Creator Fund [1] or Twitter Blue content creators (who might be compensated in the future), or even Medium.

[1]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-creator-fund-your-q...

I'm sure that if TikTok reimbursed a creator for content that was disparaging/illegal, the chain of suit would involve both the creator and TikTok. Barring complex indemnification agreements in whatever contracts were signed. S230 doesn't magically make companies "immune from everything" like a lot of people seem to think. It just correctly clarifies that person A posting on site B generated the content, and is who you should sue first if it's disparaging.

That's "how it works" with the laws in place today, there doesn't seem to be a deficiency.

This is likely a reason why YT and others demonetize controversial videos - for their own preservation, they don't want to fund the creation of content that might lure a suit.

I don't think anything's broken here. Definitely nothing that would be fixed by this Florida bill.

> S230 doesn't magically make companies "immune from everything" like a lot of people seem to think

However, some companies do think that Section 230 shields them from all liability for their interactive computer services, and lower-level courts seem to agree with them[1].

The case here[1][2] has made its way to the Supreme Court[2], though.

[1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/herrick-v-grindr-why-section-230...

[2] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/diversity/women/publicati...

There is no "admission you're a publisher," it's a meaningless concept with respect to the laws that are on the books. The law is: hosts of user-generated content can remove that content at their discretion, and still not be considered the "speaker" of all the other content they do not remove (obviously, because that would be impossible to police at scale, and obviously because obviously Twitter did not make the post).

If you kick someone out of your restaurant for being loud and boisterous in the dining area, you are not suddenly responsible that someone was disparaging a public figure the next seat over and you chose not to kick them out.

> I'm not an expert on this by any means, but isn't this an admission that these companies act like publishers? Yet they have Section 230 protection?

Having some standards doesn't automatically make you a publisher. A site with user-uploaded videos that removed, say, all porn, would not make itself a publisher.

Now, obviously there's the question of, how many restrictions until you're a publisher? I'm not sure the law is clear on that.

> Now, obviously there's the question of, how many restrictions until you're a publisher? I'm not sure the law is clear on that.

As a provider for interactive computer services, you're afforded unlimited restrictions on the content you choose to serve. Section 230 of the CDA applies to all interactive computer services and their providers, no matter what.

From the EFF[1]:

> Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of "interactive computer service providers," including basically any online service that publishes third-party content. Though there are important exceptions for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, CDA 230 creates a broad protection that has allowed innovation and free speech online to flourish.

[1] https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

Thanks for this. Though I'm not gonna trust it 100%, even though I like what it says, since, y'know, the EFF is obviously more inclined towards that take.

That interpretation of Section 230 has been exactly what courts have ruled in favor of for years now. It has tomes of precedence in case law.

Nope. It's performative and will collapse under First Amendment grounds; would even if the Feds tried it.

I think you’re downvoted because you’ve (correctly) answered this person’s question with respect to the law in the article but parent comment is worded more broadly. I think maybe they’re asking about a state’s ability to fine social media companies for anything.

Welp, so much for the "tech exodus" to miami

Assuming this law holds up (which I doubt it will) - How long before this law gets exploited by spammers?

It would be hilarious if they started a "Facebook Florida" with absolutely zero moderation. If nothing else it would be a great social experiment.

Florida man is nodding in approval of this idea.

It won't hold up, and the law's authors undoubtedly know it. It's very obviously unconstitutional for a government to tell a private group what kind of speech they may permit.

This law is clearly misguided, but let's start the conversation. Isn't an organisation controlling an algorithm that prioritizes news items essentially doing editorial work? Shouldn't it then have similar responsibility as a newspaper?

Newspapers aren't obliged to carry unedited content, comment-free, for anyone who asks them to.

Social media isn't obliged to carry unedited content either. They just do it because it maximises profit.

>Social media isn't obliged to carry unedited content either.

They will be in Florida though.

What responsibility does a newspaper (or news channel/website) have? Is this any different from CNN, Fox News, WSJ, Breitbart publishing op-eds to push a certain point of view?

It means the publisher can be sued for libel and not just the random nobodies with no power.

Can a newspaper be sued for letters to the editor, views that are clearly not those of the paper itself? Can a newspaper be sued for comments on its website?

Exactly! Newspapers are held to a higher standard for their content.

For their content that they pay for, yes, but for 'letters to the editor' and the like that random people send in? My understanding is that no, they're not liable for those things. Well, not legally liable anyway, the court of public opinion is a different matter.

It's one thing when a publisher explicitly labels something as an opinion, such as the letter to the editor section of the paper.

It's another thing entirely when Twitter or Facebook make false accusations about you in the process of banning you. Like let's say you had some ideas about where COVID originated and they banned you, slandering your good name in the process, by saying you were spreading falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

Your comment is presumably being flagged for an unpopular take, but I think it's meaningful to have a conversation (I can't say my earlier quip provides anything of value).

The first thing I did was google what's been chewed on in popular discourse: "publisher vs platform law." To my surprise, my understanding of the law was wrong. This wonderful article from the EFF cleared up why such a distinction is incorrect [1].

My takeaway from the article is that the current laws with respect to liability are preferred to the alternative, which would incentivize companies to not moderate whatsoever out of a fear of liability due to "taking a stance." This lack of curation not only hurts the ability of companies to cater to consumers' sense of community, but also allows for hecklers' vetoes. Indeed, if a user spuriously threatens legal action over content by another user, why incur editorial liability by investigating, as opposed to indiscriminately removing the content?

[1] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-...

Yes, news algorithms are a form of journalistic editorial.

With that premise, social media should even more clearly protected from government censorship (like this bill).

Facebook is way too powerful and news algorthms are perhaps destroying democracy, but trampling on the First Amendment is not the solution.

I've been saying for years that authoritarianism is headed to America if we don't protect it.

With the downfall of Florida as well as many other states, perhaps authoritarian control has truly taken over.

This is all about Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans being upset that Twitter banned Trump. This law is as authoritarian as it gets.

You're being downvoted, but you're right. There's a reason that first amendment free speech protections apply to the government, and not private actors. And there's no "...unless they get big enough" exception, despite what some seem to think.

The government regulating what speech private platforms may allow or ban is textbook authoritarianism.

If a private group wants to permit anything that's not outright illegal, or if they want to have very strict rules on what's allowed, either of those should be fine. And if a company is being overly and unreasonably restrictive about rules, that's a perfect opportunity for a disruptor to enter the fray. The very fact that attempted disruptors constantly get slapped down is a good indication that the rules some complain about aren't nearly as unreasonably as they appear. If the market opening was really that big, someone would be able to make it happen effectively.

Amusing that you think state enforcement of the first amendment on a "neutral platform" is authoritarian while you're perfectly fine with trillion dollar tech monopolies who abuse antitrust law and defamation law lording over the internet and limiting speech in the process, targeting and favoring one political party over another. It doesn't take too much self reflection to understand if the shoe was on the other foot, you'd be the one pulling for the state to "do something about it".

> Amusing that you think state enforcement of the first amendment on a "neutral platform" is authoritarian

That's not what the first amendment is. The first amendment ONLY applies to the government.

The fact that so many on hacker news continue to not understand this simple fact no matter how many times it's explained is absolutely mind-boggling. You can complain about Facebook and Twitter's policies as being dumb or bad, fine, but regardless of your opinion on them, they have nothing to do with the first amendment. None.

The first amendment has NEVER meant that private groups are obligated to carry your speech. Even if Facebook was explicitly discriminating in the open against one side, that would be entirely within their rights. Maybe that would be a bad thing that you could argue against, but it would have nothing to do with the Constitution.

edit: also, what does "neutral platform" even mean? Oh, I'm sure FB and Twitter make some claims to 'neutrality' or 'lack of bias', somewhere, but what legal weight or meaning does that have? None whatsoever.

Or are you trying to suggest that if tomorrow Zuckerberg announced, "we're going to be the biggest online social platform for Marxists only" this would make it okay in your eyes?

So, I’m not OP. I know what the 1st amendment is as you defined.

BUT the idea of free speech is heavily ingrained in American culture. School children complain about free speech when their teacher asks them to be nice - it’s a freedom learned from a very young age.

While the freedom technically only applies to freedom from government, it’s a commonly held belief in America that everyone’s speech is free and should be free, which is applied even on places like fb or Twitter. The idea (even if not the practice) that speech is protected and neutral in all forums of society is VERY American.

True, but that belief has never been extended to the idea that newspapers are required to carry op-eds or letters to the editor chosen via coin-flip instead of the editor, or that private stores with message tack-boards are obligated to host flyers for the local Klan because they host flyers for the local yoga instructors.

The back-stop to private institutions putting their thumb on the scales of open public discourse is, traditionally, the public... the public that ceases to read the papers that are too biased, or boycotts the coffee shop because it has a political agenda out of alignment with the agenda of most of the local community.

A counterpoint to that is that in American thought, freedom of speech includes the right to not be compelled to speak. An individual or a private company generally can’t be forced to promulgate opinions they don’t wish to, thanks to the protections of the First Amendment.

Free speech is not the first amendment, the first amendment is not free speech.

>it’s a commonly held belief in America that everyone’s speech is free and should be free

Seems more like the commonly held belief in America is that MY speech is free but your speech maybe shouldn't be. The school children might have a differing opinion on the teacher's "right to free speech" after the teacher calls them "stupid cunts".

Turns out that even the "free speech" platforms are not so free: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr...

And of course, the head of the Republican party is also against free speech when they don't like the speech: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-24/column-trum...

> BUT the idea of free speech is heavily ingrained in American culture. School children complain about free speech when their teacher asks them to be nice - it’s a freedom learned from a very young age.

I mean, that actually does potentially apply there, assuming it's a public school. In practice, speech there does tend to be limited anyway, but there have absolutely been first amendment court cases about what schools are and aren't allowed to restrict.

> it’s a commonly held belief in America that everyone’s speech is free and should be free, which is applied even on places like fb or Twitter. The idea (even if not the practice) that speech is protected and neutral in all forums of society is VERY American.

Not really, though. Everyone gets that even if you send in a letter to the editor, that doesn't make them obligated to reprint it. Almost every other kind of company, people already accept that they aren't obligated to work with you or allow you to publish what you want. Everyone's seen those signs about, "we reserve the right to refuse service blah blah blah" hanging around all kinds of retail stores.

In fact, the people complaining the loudest here -- conservatives -- are usually the people saying, "government should stay out of business, let businesses do whatever they want". It's only now that this principle works against them that they're finding that suddenly they don't agree anymore, and they would rather the government micromanage business policies to their political advantage. It's naked partisanship.

Get this: no it doesn't. Not only can the government force your business to bake a cake for anyone regardless of sexuality, they can force you to hire anyone regardless of all sorts of constantly evolving criteria. Landlords do not have a right to prevent tenants from placing political signs, flags, bumper stickers, etc in their windows or yards. They do not have a right to enter a tenant's property without notice. They don't have a right to tap their phone lines or end their lease just because they're Trump supporters, etc. The Supreme Court has ruled quite clearly on these things. Businesses are subject to additional restrictions on speech and free association that people are not.

Florida is one of the least authoritarian states in the union.

Please go into detail on how this law is not authoritarian.

The federal government is aligned with its cronies in big business to censor information from the general public. One state is fighting back to stop that.

Tell that to people who want(ed) to have homosexual relationships or an abortion.

Florida allows for conversion therapy on minors[1], and allows housing discrimination against LGBT people[2], as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Florida#Convers...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Stat...

"However, it died in a House subcommittee on March 11, 2016.[87] A similar bill died in 2017.[88]"

Nice drive by, try checking your sources a little more closely.

You should try reading what you're copy and pasting from:

> On September 3, 2015, State Representative David Richardson filed a bill to ban the use of conversion therapy on LGBT minors.[86] The bill was introduced to the Florida Legislature on January 12, 2016. However, it died in a House subcommittee on March 11, 2016.[87] A similar bill died in 2017.[88]

The bills that died were bills that ban conversion therapy.

It doesn't count as authoritarianism when they're my restrictive laws.

Authoritarian is as authoritarian does.

The government of Florida — comprised of the politicians of Floria — just passed a law dictating to a private company what is and isn’t allowed on their platform, specifically requiring that platforms publish the speech of government politicians.

Authority: you must broadcast our messages.

Sounds pretty damn authoritarian to me.

Wait until you hear about the FCC and broadcast television.

Maybe but... I think this has to do more with the arbitrary nature of deplatforming.

On the one hand you can have groups calling fir violence against another group and that is ignored, which is fine, but then another group engages in similar behavior and they get banned... which is not impartial. That’s a problem if you have received ideology.

Moreover, I think not silencing politicians is a good thing. Let all sides broadcast their ideas or platforms and let voters decide rather than an unaccountable private Corp.

You're basically suggesting that politicians should be above the law on these platforms, immune to rules, because they're politicians. Do I need to explain how bad that is?

If a politician breaks the rules, ideally they should be subject to the same rules anyone else is, and the same goes for any other rich or famous people. Obviously in practice that's going to be a hard target to hit, but for God's sake we shouldn't make it an explicit goal to make them a special class that can do whatever they want with impunity.

Yeah politicians being held to a different standard than the rest is textbook authoritarianism.

At least someone's attempting to give the finger to them for their inconsistencies.

Pretty happy that my tax money is not used to "give the finger".

Especially when the private sector is so much more efficient in giving the finger than the public sector will ever be.

I doubt Florida will be the last state to pass legislation like this. The overstepping of social media into the shaping of public discourse has been so egregious in recent years that the course has been set.

This law is going to be struck down fast. Other states can test the courts, but why pay for all the litigation if it looks like Florida is going to lose?

It's a wedge issue for the GOP that fits a narrative about tech companies being biased against them. They don't necessarily have to win -- in fact, in some cases it may be advantageous to lose, so they can keep on with the persecution angle.

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