Latest news with #hateSpeech
The Independent
a day ago
- Business
- The Independent
Elon Musk taking New York state to court over hate speech law
Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York, arguing that its new anti- hate speech law aimed at social media companies is unconstitutional. The X owner has taken exception to the Stop Hiding Hate Act, otherwise known as Bill S895B, arguing in the suit that it violates basic free speech rights as guaranteed under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the bill into law in December, requiring tech firms to publish their terms of service and file regular reports outlining the steps they have taken to moderate extreme content, hate speech, disinformation, and other harmful material being shared on their platforms. It finally came into effect this week, but Musk is contesting its stipulations on the basis that they would require X to reveal 'highly sensitive information' about its practices, also opposing its potential $15,000 per violation per day fines. The Act was authored by New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and State Assemblymember Grace Lee, in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League, to compel tech giants to take greater accountability for disturbing content hosted and shared across their networks. The authors dismissed the objections raised in X 's suit and called it an attempt to 'use the First Amendment as a shield against providing New Yorkers with much-needed transparency.' Hoylman-Sigal and Lee reportedly rejected an approach from Musk's company last year to discuss the bill and suggest amendments, saying they did not believe it was acting in good faith and would only seek to weaken its provisions. 'Now more than ever, with the rise in political violence and threats emanating from the spread of hate speech and disinformation by President Trump and Elon Musk, New Yorkers deserve to know what social media companies like X are doing (or not doing) to stop the spread of hatred and misinformation on their platform,' the duo said this week. X has also launched a legal challenge against an equivalent law in California, an approach consistent with Musk's efforts to reduce content moderation on X, formerly Twitter, since he acquired the company in 2022. As The Guardian has noted, while Musk styles himself as a 'free speech absolutist,' he has a track record of using his platform to attack media outlets that report unfavorably about his activities. Most recently, he has rebuked The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for reporting on his alleged drug use while working alongside President Donald Trump in the White House. This relationship recently came to a spectacularly acrimonious end, with the two billionaires trading insults on X and Truth Social, respectively.
News24
2 days ago
- Business
- News24
Elon Musk's X Corp sues to block New York social media transparency law
• Elon Musk's X Corp has filed a federal lawsuit against a New York state law 'Stop Hiding Hate Act' that requires social media companies to submit semi-annual reports on how they moderate hate speech and disinformation. • X argues the law violates the First Amendment by forcing platforms to disclose sensitive moderation practices. • The law targets companies with over $100 million in annual revenue, imposes $15 000 daily fines for violations. Elon Musk's X Corp has filed a lawsuit challenging a New York state law that requires social media companies to report how they moderate hate speech and disinformation. The complaint, filed in a federal court in Manhattan, seeks to halt the law, which X argues violates the First Amendment by forcing platforms to disclose sensitive information about their content moderation practices. "Today, @X filed a First Amendment lawsuit against a New York law, NY S895B," X's Global Government Affairs team posted Tuesday, adding that it had successfully challenged a similar law in California. "X is the only platform fighting for its users by challenging the law, and we are confident we will prevail in this case as well," the company said. The New York law requires social media companies with more than $100 million in annual revenue to submit semi-annual reports detailing how they define and moderate hate speech, racism, extremism, disinformation and harassment. Companies face fines of $15 000 per day for violations, which can be sought by the attorney general's office. X says the law is "an impermissible attempt by the State to inject itself into the content-moderation editorial process" and seeks to pressure platforms into restricting constitutionally protected speech. The lawsuit comes after X successfully challenged a nearly identical California law last year, according to the filing. New York's law is "a carbon copy" of the California provisions that were struck down, the filing adds. X claims New York lawmakers refused to discuss changes to the bill after the California ruling, with sponsors saying they declined to meet because of content on X promoted by owner Musk that "threatens the foundations of our democracy." READ | Musk's X sues to block California anti-hate speech law The company argues this indicated "viewpoint discriminatory motives" behind the law's passage. Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly member Grace Lee - who introduced the law - said in a statement that their act "does not infringe upon the First Amendment rights of social media companies, nor does it conflict with federal law". "Instead, the Stop Hiding Hate Act requires narrowly tailored disclosures by social media companies to allow consumers to better decide which social media platforms they utilise," they added. "The fact that Elon Musk would go to these lengths to avoid disclosing straightforward information to New Yorkers as required by our statute illustrates exactly why we need the Stop Hiding Hate Act."
Asharq Al-Awsat
3 days ago
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Rise in 'Harmful Content' Since Meta Policy Rollbacks, Survey Shows
Harmful content including hate speech has surged across Meta's platforms since the company ended third-party fact-checking in the United States and eased moderation policies, a survey showed Monday. The survey of around 7,000 active users on Instagram, Facebook and Threads comes after the Palo Alto company ditched US fact-checkers in January and turned over the task of debunking falsehoods to ordinary users under a model known as "Community Notes," popularized by X. The decision was widely seen as an attempt to appease President Donald Trump's new administration, whose conservative support base has long complained that fact-checking on tech platforms was a way to curtail free speech and censor right-wing content. Meta also rolled back restrictions around topics such as gender and sexual identity. The tech giant's updated community guidelines said its platforms would permit users to accuse people of "mental illness" or "abnormality" based on their gender or sexual orientation. "These policy shifts signified a dramatic reversal of content moderation standards the company had built over nearly a decade," said the survey published by digital and human rights groups including UltraViolet, GLAAD, and All Out. "Among our survey population of approximately 7,000 active users, we found stark evidence of increased harmful content, decreased freedom of expression, and increased self-censorship". One in six respondents in the survey reported being the victim of some form of gender-based or sexual violence on Meta platforms, while 66 percent said they had witnessed harmful content such as hateful or violent material. Ninety-two percent of surveyed users said they were concerned about increasing harmful content and felt "less protected from being exposed to or targeted by" such material on Meta's platforms. Seventy-seven percent of respondents described feeling "less safe" expressing themselves freely. The company declined to comment on the survey. In its most recent quarterly report, published in May, Meta insisted that the changes in January had left a minimal impact. "Following the changes announced in January we've cut enforcement mistakes in the US in half, while during that same time period the low prevalence of violating content on the platform remained largely unchanged for most problem areas," the report said. But the groups behind the survey insisted that the report did not reflect users' experiences of targeted hate and harassment. "Social media is not just a place we 'go' anymore. It's a place we live, work, and play. That's why it's more crucial than ever to ensure that all people can safely access these spaces and freely express themselves without fear of retribution," Jenna Sherman, campaign director at UltraViolet, told AFP. "But after helping to set a standard for content moderation online for nearly a decade, (chief executive) Mark Zuckerberg decided to move his company backwards, abandoning vulnerable users in the process. "Facebook and Instagram already had an equity problem. Now, it's out of control," Sherman added. The groups implored Meta to hire an independent third party to "formally analyze changes in harmful content facilitated by the policy changes" made in January, and for the tech giant to swiftly reinstate the content moderation standards that were in place earlier. The International Fact-Checking Network has previously warned of devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift related to fact-checkers beyond US borders to the company's programs covering more than 100 countries. AFP currently works in 26 languages with Meta's fact-checking program, including in Asia, Latin America, and the European Union.
BBC News
3 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Musk's X sues New York over social media hate speech law
Elon Musk's X has challenged a New York state law that requires social media companies to disclose how they monitor hate speech, extremism, and other contentious a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, argues that the law forces companies to disclose "highly sensitive and controversial speech" that is protected under the constitution's First York Attorney General Letitia James, who is in charge of enforcing this law, is the named defendant in X's media sites have become the main source of news for Americans, with majority consuming it on networks like X, according to a new research from the Reuters Institute. Deciding what content is acceptable on social media platforms "engenders considerable debate among reasonable people about where to draw the correct proverbial line," X said. "This is not a role that the government may play."The Stop Hiding Hate Act, passed in December, requires social media companies to disclose steps they take to eliminate hate on their platforms, and to report their progress. In a statement on Tuesday, the two New York state lawmakers who sponsored the Stop Hiding Hate Act called social media companies like X "cesspools of hate speech" and said the law did not violate the First media platforms, including X, "have consistently failed to inform the public about their policies regarding hatred and misinformation", Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Grace Lee New York Attorney General Letitia James nor X replied to the BBC's request for comment on Tuesday.X's lawsuit against New York state comes nine months after the company successfully blocked a California law that required large social media companies to submit reports about their content-moderation policies. The company extensively cited its earlier victory in its Tuesday's lawsuit and criticised New York lawmakers for failing to revisit the legislation's language even after the California law was largely struck who acquired X in 2022, has dramatically scaled back the rules that govern what content and behaviours are acceptable on the platform, according to Professor Laura Edelson, who teaches computer science at Northeastern has "also significantly reduced the resources the platform puts into enforcing even the rules it does still have," she said. "This is why, even though rules around spam haven't changed on X, there is so much more floating around than there used to be."Last year, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Musk against a research group that documented an uptick in hate speech on the site. Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Elon Musk's X sues New York over hate speech and disinformation law
Elon Musk's X Corp filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the state of New York, arguing a recently passed law compelling large social media companies to divulge how they address hate speech is unconstitutional. The complaint alleges that bill S895B, known as the Stop Hiding Hate Act, violates free speech rights under the first amendment. The act, which the governor, Kathy Hochul, signed into law last December, requires companies to publish their terms of service and submit reports detailing the steps they take to moderate extremism, foreign influence, disinformation, hate speech and other forms of harmful content. Musk's lawyers argue that the law, which goes into effect this week, would require X to submit 'highly sensitive information' and compel non-commercial speech, which is subject to greater first amendment protections. The complaint also opposes the possible penalty of $15,000 per violation per day for failing to comply with the law. The bill's authors issued a statement on Tuesday rejecting Musk's suit as an attempt to 'use the First Amendment as a shield against providing New Yorkers with much needed transparency' and argued that the act does not infringe upon the free speech rights of social media companies. X successfully sued last year to block a similar law in California, which also required social media companies to disclose to the government how they define hate speech and extremism. Since Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he has heavily downgraded content moderation efforts and fought against attempts at regulating the platform. The Stop Hiding Hate Act was written by Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a New York state senator and Grace Lee, a state assemblymember, in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League, with the intent of providing great transparency and accountability over harmful online speech. Lee and Hoylman-Sigal rejected a request last year from X to discuss and amend the bill, according to the state senator, on the grounds that they believed the company was not acting in good faith and only seeking to weaken the bill's requirements. 'Now more than ever, with the rise in political violence and threats emanating from the spread of hate speech and disinformation by President Trump and Elon Musk, New Yorkers deserve to know what social media companies like X are doing (or not doing) to stop the spread of hatred and misinformation on their platform,' Hoylman-Sigal and Lee said Tuesday. Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion Although Musk has described himself as a 'free speech absolutist', his platform X has targeted journalists and media outlets that post critical information about him. The platform suspended the accounts of several journalists in recent years that have reported on Musk and throttled links to news sites he has criticized. Musk also sued a non-profit that catalogued racist and extremist content on X, in a case that a US district judge threw out as an attempt to punish freedom of speech.
