Tallahassee

A ban on bans: Florida Gov. Ron

DeSantis this week signed a law making his state the first to prohibit social media companies from banning political candidates. The measure threatens companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube with fines of $250,000 per day if they suspend the account of a candidate for statewide office for more than 14 days. The fine is $25,000 for local races. It also limits the ability of social networks to block content from news outlets. The law exempts companies that own theme parks—a carve-out for tourism-driver Disney. Florida Republicans passed the legislation in response to Facebook’s and Twitter’s suspensions of former President Donald Trump. Civil liberties advocates said the legislation was blatantly unconstitutional and predicted it would be struck down in court. “It’s a brazen assault on the First Amendment,” said Corbin Barthold, internet policy counsel for the TechFreedom think tank.