WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - New York's attorney general is defending a new hate speech law called confusing and unconstitutional by a legal blog and other online platforms.
AG Letitia James filed opposition to the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction against the Online Hate Speech Law on Dec. 13 in federal court. Eugene Volokh (who operates the Volokh Conspiracy legal blog), Rumble Canada Inc., and Locals Technology. Inc., filed a complaint 12 days earlier.
The plaintiffs allege that the law illegally regulates online speech that "someone, somewhere perceives to 'vilify, humiliate or incite violence'" based on race, color and religion.
They claim the law is a "First amendment double whammy" that "burdens the publication of disfavored but protected speech" and forces online services to single out content or face daily fines of up to $1,000.
James says their arguments are based on a "fundamentally incorrect reading" of the law.
"Nowhere in the statute is a social media network required to remove so-called 'hate speech' - or any other kind of speech - from any platform," her office wrote.
"And nowhere in the statute is a social media network punished or penalized based on content or viewpoint."
The plaintiffs allege the Online Speech Law violates the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment because it is overbroad and that the speech only has to be "perceived by an unspecified someone" to vilify, humiliate or incite violence. They further allege the law does not properly define "user internet platform" and that "social media network" is too broadly defined as any online service with a comment section visited by "at least one person in New York."
AG James says the terms in the law are clearly defined.
"'Hateful conduct,' as defined in the statute, specifies the scope of the conduct that individual users, in their own view, must be able to report; it in no way refers to any speech or viewpoint that is prohibited," her brief says.
The law says hateful conduct is the use of a social media network to "vilify, humiliate, or incite violence aainst a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression."
Social media networks are for-profit internet platforms that allow users to share content, the law says.