Social Media Transparency

2021 SB 7072 HB 7013 Social Media: Technology Transparency

Follow-up Thank you letter…

Dear Representative/Senator,

To those who voted yes to SB 7072 THANK YOU!

As a frequent user of social media, it was necessary to pass a Social Media Transparency guideline bill this session. Thank you.  If all 50 states passed a similar bill our freedom of speech would be protected nationally. Given the number of daily users Facebook 1.73 B/day and Twitter 166 M /day it was not necessary to wait for the Federal Government to deem those social media platforms monopolies.  Requiring social media platforms to define the behavior that will lead to censorship or being ‘taken down’ or account eliminated are policies and guidelines that most companies already have.  Why should social media outlets be any different?  Big Tech needed to be held accountable and this bill accomplishes this goal.

Previously, friends were randomly targeted for posting positive messages about a political candidate or event they attended while other people could post vile, crude, death threatening comments about people who had differing political views.  This is clearly discriminatory which is exactly why this bill was essential.

Send note of thanks to sponsors and thank or tell disappointment to your Senator and House Rep.

Sen. Ray Rodrigues (R-FL-27)    850-487-5027              rodrigues.ray@flsenate.gov
Rep. Blaise Ingoglia (R-FL-35)   850-717-5035               blaise.ingoglia@myfloridahouse.gov

Vote party lines except Jeff Brandes 

Action Alert Letter April

Representative,

When freedom of speech has been taken away by social media monopolies that arbitrarily decide to remove an persons’ post or take down a platform then Capitalism no longer exists. Government must step in to ensure a consistent standard applies to everyone not just to those who agree with the monopolies' agendas.    

Sincerely,

Democrats: social media is free you are not paying for it not contractual rights…Parler was taken down because Amazon couldn't handle the load (LIE), social media is a private company we should not regulate, popularity should not be regulated, if you don't like Facebook or twitter stop using it....

The biggest criticism to the bill is that while there is bipartisan consensus that platforms have gotten too powerful, until they are officially deemed regulated monopolies by the federal government, they are private companies protect by the First Amendment, and Florida alone can’t change that. NOT OFFICIALLY BEEN DEEMED MONOPOLIES THEREFORE GOV NO RIGHT TO REGULATE

A bipartisan group of opponents considers the bill unconstitutional and warns that by compelling companies to allow speech that violates their use-of-service agreements, at could suppress their attempts to moderate dangerous content, which will lead to more calls for restraints on free speech.

“This bill abandons conservative values, violates the First Amendment, and would force websites to host antisemitic, racist and hateful content,” said Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel at NetChoice, a technology advocacy organization. “SB 7072 is unconstitutional as it compels private businesses to host speech in a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Creating a new Fairness Doctrine for the Internet will only make it harder for conservatives to share their news and views online.”

Republicans: When freedom of the press and freedom of speech are taken away by monopolies this is when govt needs to step in, we can’t let businesses be allowed to block individuals, organization or companies they arbitrary decide to, Twitch said will now remove people not based on platform but off platform.  How will they know your behavior off platform?  Are you comfortable with that? Our gov't should be on the side of the people not monopolies. 

“Big tech must be held accountable. Big tech cannot be left unchecked,’' said Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, a Spring Hill Republican who sponsored the House version of the bill. “Social media companies and how big they are getting are indeed becoming a problem, and it’s becoming a First Amendment issue in the United States to the point where people from both political parties are starting to recognize just how powerful they are becoming.”

DeSantis criticized “the big tech oligarchy” for being “more of a clear and present danger to the rights of free speech than the government itself.”

“This bill does something very simple. It requires social media platforms to define the behavior that will lead to a censor. That’s it,’' said Sen. Ray Rodrigues, an Estero Republican before the Senate vote on Monday.

Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg vigorously questioned the intent of the legislation. At the last committee stop for the Senate bill, Brandes read an example of a post provided to him by Amazon, which removed the Parler platform from its server after it violated its terms of service by allowing posts promoting violence and conspiracies.

Any user who has been de-platformed would be allowed access to retrieve all of their information and content. And any platform that removes someone without giving them 30 days warning may be fined up to $250,000 per day.

“This bill does something very simple. It requires social media platforms to define the behavior that will lead to a censor. That’s it,’' said Sen. Ray Rodrigues, an Estero Republican before the Senate vote on Monday.

“The reason Parler got taken off of Amazon Web Services was they got overwhelmed, they couldn’t keep up,’' Brandes said. “There were too many posts coming in, and they couldn’t they couldn’t clear them all.” LOL LOL

DeSantis, a loyal supporter of Trump, has been undeterred by the arguments. In January, he accused Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon of “viewpoint discrimination,” alleging that their algorithms unfairly limit conservative speech. He specifically noted that the platforms didn’t ban from their accounts the supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, both of whom DeSantis said used their accounts to incite violence.

The bill is supported by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that said, “we are entering into a potentially dangerous time for political free speech.” It is opposed by Facebook, Apple, Amazon, NetChoice and the Internet Association.

Articles  notice titles 

• Florida lawmakers advance bill to penalize social media companies( See quotes above)
  
  • The bill would require social media companies to publish the standards it uses for censoring, de-platforming or blocking a user or their content, and give users 30 days before removing them from the platform, regardless of how dangerous or violence the content is.
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• Florida bill to restrict social media And the bill includes provisions for conservatives’ favorite social media bogeyman: shadow-banning, which it defines rather opaquely as “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 the exposure of a user or content or material posted by a user to other users of the social media platform.” Users must be allowed to opt out of shadow banning, and platforms can’t shadow ban political candidates or news websites.