United States of America: Rejected Oklahoma Act on Social Media Speech and Censorship (SB 1862)

On 27 May 2022, the Bill on Social Media Speech and Censorship (SB 1862) was rejected after failing to pass before the legislature session adjourned. The Bill introduced a private right of action by a user against a social media website if the website deleted or censored the user’s political or religious speech. Additionally, social media websites were not allowed to use the policy on hate speech to justify such an action but could mitigate the damages if they restored the speech. Social media websites would have been immune by liability if they used an algorithm to censor instances of speech of pornographic nature, that call for immediate acts of violence, that are the result of an operational error or court order, that come from an inauthentic source or involve criminal conduct or that violates intellectual property regulation.