Elon Musk’s X Corp. sued New York on Tuesday, claiming that a state law requiring social media companies to disclose how they define and monitor hate speech, extremism, disinformation, and harassment violates the Constitution.
X filed the suit in federal court in Manhattan, claiming that provisions of New York’s “Stop Hiding Hate Act,” signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) in December 2024, violate state and federal free speech guarantees.
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The social media company is asking the court to invalidate the provisions and prevent the state from enforcing them.
Deciding what content is acceptable on social media platforms “engenders considerable debate among reasonable people about where to draw the correct proverbial line,” X argued in court filings. “This is not a role that the government may play.”
New York’s law requires X and other major social media platforms to file semiannual reports detailing how they define and moderate hate speech and foreign political interference. Violations could reach $15,000 a day.
X argued the rules are based on a “nearly identical” California law that the company sued over and won in court last year. A federal appeals court granted X an order preliminarily blocking the state law, Assembly Bill 587.
Musk, the world’s richest man and former Department of Government Efficiency head, has always described himself as a free speech advocate. After he took over Twitter in 2022, he eliminated the company’s content moderation policy and changed the social media platform’s name to X.
New York’s law was written by state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblywoman Grace Lee, both Democrats, with help from the Anti-Defamation League.
“We were proud to sponsor the Stop Hiding Hate Act, in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, because social media companies, including X, are cesspools of hate speech … yet these platforms have failed to inform the public about their policies regarding hatred and misinformation,” Hoylman-Sigal and Lee wrote following X’s lawsuit. “To be clear, the Stop Hiding Hate Act does not infringe upon the First Amendment. … It requires narrowly-tailored disclosures by social media companies to allow consumers to better decide which platforms they utilize.”
“Now more than ever, with the rise in political violence and threats emanating from the spread of hate speech and disinformation by President Trump and Elon Musk, New Yorkers deserve to know what social media companies like X are doing (or not doing) to stop the spread of hatred and misinformation on their platforms,” they continued.
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Hoylman-Sigal added that he was “confident” the court would reject Musk’s lawsuit. He chided the billionaire for using the “First Amendment as a shield against providing New Yorkers with much-needed transparency” around what X was allowing on their site.
Calls to X for additional comment were not returned.