Silver Spring-based Maryland state delegate Jheanelle Wilkins (Democrat), herself a frequent user of social media accounts to spread election and public policy influence (and to take plenty of partisan shots), doesn’t appear to be a fan of free speech or tech platforms like X (formerly Twitter) that allow it.
Co-sponsoring House Bill 333 this year in Annapolis along with Delegate Samuel Rosenberg, Wilkins appears to want “each large social media platform of more than 1,000,000 monthly active users in the United States to make reasonable efforts to prevent, detect, and remove accounts and posts that communicate election disinformation in the State; requiring a large social media platform to report election disinformation by providing certain information to the State Board of Elections within 48 hours after the large social media platform becomes aware of an account or a post that communicates election disinformation; etc.”
Here is a screen cap from mgaleg.maryland.gov:
Here is what the filed bill text defines as “election disinformation” in its summary and subsequent mentions:
And here is what Delegate Wilkins wants the “social media companies” to provide ‘das state’:
Essentially, she wants social media companies to be spies for Maryland government, and to quickly report “election disinformation” so that further action can be taken against individuals who might simply be sharing a meme or posting something sarcastic, or even just vocally calling out the results of an election (which is everyone’s right). Under this proposal, it also sounds like if someone simply kept posting “People here illegally can’t vote in any Maryland elections”, they’d be potentially tracked, reported, indicted (Illegal / undocumented migrants can indeed vote in some Maryland municipal elections, so this type of posting would be “disinformation”).
This would seem to run aground of the first amendment of the United States Constitution, as disputing or voicing opinion (yes even on social media) about election results is — protected speech.
Here is what Mark MacCarthy, “a tech policy expert and senior fellow at the [left leaning] Brookings Institution.” even told NPR this past July about a case in federal court called State of Missouri, Et Al. Versus Joseph R Biden Jr, Et Al.
It was pretty clear on the part of everybody involved in this, that the speech involved was clearly protected by the First Amendment,” he says. “It was statements about whether the election was fraudulent or accurate. It was statements about whether vaccines worked or not. And while those things maybe have scientific answers, the unscientific answers are clearly protected speech.
If this bill were to become law, signed by Governor Wes Moore, it would most assuredly get challenged in federal court immediately on 1A grounds. It would likely be challenged by social media corps as well. What a waste of time by our state reps. Meanwhile Maryland is in a severe budget deficit that only grows in subsequent yearly budgets.
We’ll continue tracking this awful bill in Annapolis and follow up with any meaningful updates. A hearing on the bill might occur Feb. 6, around 1 p.m.
Marylanders / MoCo residents deserve free speech champions as their delegates, not Delegate Wilkins and this kind of top-down speech policing.
