- (a) Any person who operates a social media Internet Web site with physical presence in California shall develop a strategic plan to verify news stories shared on its Internet Web site.
(b) The strategic plan shall include, but is not limited to, all of the following:
(1) A plan to mitigate the spread of false information through news stories.
(2) The utilization of fact-checkers to verify news stories.
(3) Providing outreach to social media users regarding news stories containing false information.
Fact-checkers? Who decides what the 'facts' are? There's a lot of disagreement on the line between fact and opinion.
This legislation says that nobody is allowed to lie on the internet, and that private companies have to enforce the truth policy. What could go wrong?
California really does have powerful drugs eh?
Why are social media companies expected, or even allowed to try and control the discourse? I think laws should prevent that, not mandate it.
Why are social media companies expected, or even allowed to try and control the discourse? I think laws should prevent that, not mandate it.
I think this might hit another "states rights vs federal rights" issue if this is actually taken seriously. States have already restricted gun ownership, have legalized federally illegal drugs, created sanctuaries for illegal immigrants and are now trying to restrict freedom of press and freedom of speech. Most of those should honestly have the army knocking on their doors for violating the constitution.
The courts take so long to contest these decisions that it could be years after this may go into effect before it could be overturned. Why social media? Easy target and you could literally classify any website with a comment section as social media.
another "states rights vs federal rights" issue
I remember learning about the divisions of government in school. In Canada it's straight-forward, provincial handles local stuff, federal handles anything that affects the whole nation. There's not much conflict.
We actually spent more time learning about the American system because it was more complicated and interesting.
The colonies feared giving too much power to a federal union. So the split between state powers and feds gets very convoluted with a lot of grey area.
If I remember correctly, they knew at the time that it would cause problems down the road, but it was the only way to get all the colonies to join the union.
And I don't think things have changed much. As a state, or citizen, I would not trust the US feds. They enabled their dogs (CIA NSA) to turn on the American people, they ignore the desires of the population (weed should be legal on a national level, among other things), they are corrupt.
So while the states having too much power causes problems, I think things might get even worse if that issue was fixed.
I think the best way to deal with Cali right now would be for companies to cut them off. Don't bother with the expense of trying to obey their dumb laws, just stop sending any products to Cali. Put a disclaimer on websites that says no Californians allowed.
California would cancel the law, and others, within minutes.
Cali has a history of passing strict regulations that go beyond anyone else, and beyond reason. Manufacturers do no make different versions of products for different areas, that's too expensive. So everything in North America meets California requirements.
When I bought my motorcycle, in Canada, the dealer removed one of the emissions parts for me because it was only required in Cali (nowhere else in the world) and it didn't actually do anything at all but knock a couple HP off my max output. It was supposed to reduce some emissions, but no science had ever confirmed that, just a vegan hippy that was consulted by the Cali politicians.
Like all attention whores, Cali will just continue this bad behaviour if they are allowed to bully others without repercussion.
It will never happen, but US based business should just pull out of Cali, they would save almost as much as they lose, and it wouldn't last long.
Legitimately California is the worst state to run a business. It has the highest tax and the most regulations. If you own an office space in California, you have to pay an extra tax on every single piece of office furniture you own every year for 5 or 10 years (I forget the term), so people go around to inventory chairs and tables every year to pay tax on them again. It's absolutely absurd. I don't know why businesses want to be here.
"Newly" should be "recently", but I missed the title edit timeframe (5 minutes I think?)
This is something that is completely unenforceable and will likely get the state sued.