Satire Site Sues State Over Demand For Reporting On ‘Misinformation’

The chief of the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee is taking legal action against California for a new state demand that tech platforms provide reporting on “misinformation” and “hate speech.”

In an online column, Bee CEO Seth Dillon explains the law is “unconstitutional” because of the First Amendment.

Other plaintiffs are podcaster Tim Pool and social media app Minds.

Gov. Gavin Newsom had outlined the intent of the law earlier, saying, “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.”

The problem substantially is that only leftists and progressives in power in government are defining “disinformation.” After all, dozens of national security experts said the Biden family scandals confirmed on the laptop computer Hunter Biden abandoned before the 2020 election was “Russian disinformation,” when in fact it was an accurate summary of those international business dealing scandals.

In that situation, the California law could have been used to penalize those who provided accurate reporting on the Biden family’s income from overseas interests, including those in Russia and China.

The filing charges that the law, AB 587, “targets constitutionally protected speech.”

Dillon explained it’s good 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.”

That’s because what’s allowed is “wrong,” and “wrong on purpose.”

In fact, evidence now confirms that the Deep State in Washington and Democrats were working actively with Big Tech companies over recent years to censor and suppress conservative thought and speech.

Multiple legal cases have resulted that alarmingly charge that the government was dictating to the social media companies what speech was allowed and what wasn’t, which would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Dillon explained, “AB 587 is a new law in California that regulates social media companies. It requires Big Tech platforms to provide periodic reporting to the California Attorney General on several categories of speech, including misinformation, disinformation, extremism, radicalization, and hate speech. If the platforms don’t provide adequate reporting, the state will impose fines to compel compliance. They’re claiming it’s just about ‘transparency.’ That’s not true. This is a censorship bill, not a transparency bill.”

Dillon explained he’s already testified to Congress that “censorship guards the narrative, not the truth. In fact, it guards the narrative at the expense of the truth. 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.”

He said the case charges the law violates the First Amendment, is too vague to be constitutionally enforced, and violates the free speech guarantees in the California Constitution.”