from the got-this-one-right dept
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a state legislature, caught up in the moral panic about social media, passes yet another clearly unconstitutional bill that will waste taxpayer money on doomed legal battles. This time it’s Colorado, whose legislature passed a ridiculously bad social media regulation bill (SB25-086) that looks suspiciously similar to bills that have already failed in Utah, Arkansas, and other states. But this story has a slightly different ending.
Like many such bills, this one had an age verification component, which would require massive privacy violations for all users, and also would have draconian and clearly unconstitutional requirements for websites to police certain specified “bad” content online, including suspending accounts of certain users based on Colorado claiming that some people don’t deserve social media accounts (which would clearly run afoul of the Supreme Court’s Packingham ruling from 2017).
In this case, though, Governor Jared Polis (who is often, though not always, good on internet issues) chose to veto the bill with a very clear letter explaining his (correct) reasons. He notes that while there are real concerns about problems online, much of the reasoning behind the bill feels like a moral panic, blaming the tech for how it is used:
But it’s not just that the bill is based on a moral panic falsely targeted at the technology rather than specific abuses, it’s that the nature of the bill is deeply problematic and does away with some basic due process and privacy rights:
He also notes that for all of the screaming about the supposed evils of the internet, the authors of the bill seem to ignore that many, many people are actually helped by the internet. And enabling government-backed censorship would create a huge mess:
He closes by also noting (as almost no other state does) the absolute ridiculousness of thinking that a single state should regulate the internet, which would create a 50-state statutory patchwork for businesses that operate without borders.
It’s a great letter.
Of course, almost immediately, the Colorado legislature sought to override his veto, and the Senate voted to override Polis 29-6 the very next day. The sponsors of the bill didn’t address any of Polis’ stated concerns (including the fact that the Supreme Court had made it clear that a bill like this was unconstitutional). Instead, they trot out the usual propaganda about how they’re just out there “protecting the children” and who could possibly be against that?
So much unconstitutional, unconscionable garbage is passed by legislatures under the false banner of “protecting the children.” As Polis rightly noted, this bill won’t do that — it will actually make many children significantly less safe by driving them away from supportive online communities and forcing them to hand over sensitive personal data. But these moral panic-driven authoritarians don’t care about the real-world consequences. They just want their name in the headlines with false claims of how they saved kids they actually put at risk.
Thankfully, the override was halted earlier this week when the legislature realized it didn’t have the votes for the override in the larger House and punted on the bill.
These bad bills keep popping up over and over again, so I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of this kind of bill. What’s particularly concerning is watching supposedly informed players jump on the moral panic bandwagon. Take current Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a leading candidate to replace Polis. As a former law professor specializing in internet and telecom law, Weiser should understand exactly why these bills are constitutionally problematic. Instead, he’s championing the same failed approaches we’ve seen crater in courtrooms across the country.
It’s a stark reminder that when it comes to internet regulation, even those with the expertise to know better often can’t resist the siren song of “protecting the children” — even when their proposed solutions do anything but.