United States of America: Signing into law of Senate Bill 7072 prohibits social media platforms from blocking politicians

On May 24 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 7072 into law. The Bill prohibits social media platforms from deplatforming political candidates and in case of noncompliance the platforms will face fines depending on the candidate status. The fine for deplatforming a candidate for statewide office is USD 250’000 per day and for candidates for non-statewide offices, the fine is set at USD 25’000 per day. The bill further prohibits restrictions of journalistic enterprises with more than 100’000 active users per month or 50’000 paid subscribers and includes provisions against shadow-banning, defined as any action taken to limit the exposure of a user or its content to other users of the social media platform. Finally, the Bill requires that each platform, within 7 days from the deplatforming, censoring, or shadow-banning of any user, shall provide such user with a detailed notice on the reasons behind the decision. For 60 days after the decision, a platform must allow a deplatformed user to access or retrieve all of its information and content on the platform. The provisions in the Bill will enter into force on 1 July 2021.