Federal Court Dismisses Musk's X Lawsuit Against New York Law Forcing Platforms To Define Speech

U.S. District Judge John Cronan in Manhattan dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit by Elon Musk's X Corp challenging New York's Stop Hiding Hate Act (S895B), which requires social media platforms to disclose how they define and monitor hate speech, extremism, harassment, foreign political interference, and disinformation. X had argued the law violated the First Amendment by exposing it to lawsuits and penalties up to $15,000 per day for failing to disclose speech the state considered objectionable. New York Attorney General Letitia James had moved to dismiss the case in November 2025, contending the law informed consumers without restricting platforms' moderation decisions.

Cronan rejected X's argument, writing that "the First Amendment poses no obstacle to New York's law" and that disclosure requirements for businesses are typically permissible. He distinguished X's ongoing challenge to California's similar AB 587, which the Ninth Circuit sent back under strict First Amendment scrutiny, by applying instead the more relaxed "Zauderer scrutiny" reserved for purely factual, uncontroversial commercial disclosures. Cronan analogized the reporting requirements to menu calorie labeling and held that Section 230 does not preempt reporting duties tied to incomplete or false filings.

The article notes tension in this reasoning: the categories X is forced to adopt ("hate speech," "disinformation," "extremism") are contested political concepts rather than neutral product specifications, raising serious compelled-speech concerns. The ruling creates a split with the Ninth Circuit on a difficult First Amendment question, and the with-prejudice dismissal is described as aggressive given that X's theory already has a foothold in a sister circuit.

(Source：Zerohedge)