9th Cir. Pauses California Law Addressing Social Media Content Moderation Practices

SAN FRANCISCO — The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has paused a California law that requires large social media platform owners to submit reports detailing their content-moderation policies and practices, ruling that X Corp., formerly Twitter, has a good chance of succeeding on its claim that the mandates violate its First Amendment rights.

On Sept. 4, the appellate panel remanded the case to a California federal court, directing it to issue a preliminary injunction on the semi-annual reporting requirements and to rule whether those provisions can be severed from the rest of Assembly Bill 587.

In September 2022, the …