On Wednesday, a U.S. District Court judge struck down a new Florida law that would shelter dangerous and malicious social media content. Set to go into effect tomorrow, the new law would have tied platforms’ hands in fighting hate speech and disinformation, restricted platform policy changes to once per month, facilitated foreign trolls’ interference in elections, and enabled political leaders to foment insurrection online. Chamber of Progress and eight other industry and civil society organizations submitted an amicus brief to the court earlier this month opposing the law. 

“To keep people safe from online harassment and disinformation, social media companies need to be able to referee their platforms. Florida’s new law would have forced sites to pull the refs, opening up digital media to hate groups and scammers,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “Lawmakers should focus on fostering healthy online communities, not sheltering harassers and the insurrectionists who stormed our Capitol.”

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Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a new center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future. We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.Our corporate partners do not have a vote on or veto over our positions. We do not speak for individual partner companies and remain true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree.