- By Joergen Haisem
- (General Dispatch) – Florida Republicans have introduced a new bill to protect political candidates from censorship by the big technology media and to divert certain information from being disclosed.
- The bill was supported by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in early February, who singled out big tech companies as an enemy to democracy and free speech.
- This law has been one of the strongest imposed by a state, one of the measures of the project is to fine technology companies with $100,000 per day for state candidates and $10,000 for other public figures.
- But in order to be approved this law must not collide with what the federal law establishes, section 230 which describes that “no legal action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any state or local law that is inconsistent with this section”.
- The bill will have other measures that will limit large technology companies from applying “shadow banning” being an action by a social media platform, through any means, whether the action is determined by a natural person or an algorithm, to limit or eliminate exposure of a user or content or material posted by a user to other users of the social media platform.
- Those users who are victims of blocking by large companies will have the right to demand access and retrieval of all their content within 60 days without extension.
- Republican Laura Loomer was blocked on some platforms in her candidacy for the US Congress, but she expressed annoyance and said that the fines should be higher since that amount is not significant for the revenues generated by Google, Twitter and Facebook.
- However, this bill will be subject to changes, as there are still questions about what to do with candidates who were previously blocked and are still active in the political race.
Adittional Information:
Breitbart: Florida House Introduces Legislation to Regulate Tech Censorship
News 4 Jax: Florida’s big tech censorship bill clears second committee
