Judge blocks Florida’s social media law
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images A Florida internet law is on hold while a lawsuit contesting it continues. Judge Robert Hinkle has issued a preliminary injunction blocking nearly all of SB 7072, a controversial and sweeping regulation of social media platforms.
The legislation now at issue was an effort to rein in social-media providers deemed too large and too liberal. Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate governmental interest," Hinkle wrote his order. Moreover, the law discriminates on its face among otherwise identical speakers," partly thanks to an eyebrow-raising exemption for companies that operate a theme park. That raises the bar for evaluating whether the law violates the First Amendment - and in Hinkle's estimation, it...