<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1616693710665.png" alt="A bill brought forth by Sen. Mark Steffen, a Reno County Republican, would prohibit social media terms of service that permit censorship of political speech. Opponents of the bill said the measure would not stand up to constitutional scrutiny. (Noah Taborda/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>A bill brought forth by Sen. Mark Steffen, a Reno County Republican, would prohibit social media terms of service that permit censorship of political speech. Opponents of the bill said the measure would not stand up to constitutional scrutiny. (Noah Taborda/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>By NOAH TABORDA <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2021/03/24/kansas-republicans-promote-effort-to-preserve-political-expression-on-social-media/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA
 — A bill backed by Republican legislators to prohibit social media 
censorship raised flags Wednesday of possible litigation and 
unconstitutionality.Under&nbsp;<a href="http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2021_22/measures/sb187/" target="_blank">Senate Bill 187</a>,
 social media platforms would still be able to censor speech that is 
obscene, lewd, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable
 as described in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. 
However, censorship of any harassing or objectionable material that is a
 form of political expression would not be allowed.Violations
 would be reported to the attorney general, who would then be required 
to investigate and possibly take action to seek relief. The fiscal note 
attached to the bill indicated if a major social media platform’s terms 
of service are not compliant with this act, the number of potential 
complaints could be in the thousands.The
 bill is a response to frustration among federal and state lawmakers of 
the banning and removal of certain users or posts on websites like 
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and others. Sen. Mark Steffen, 
R-Hutchinson, characterized these acts as the unjust suppression of 
conservative viewpoints like his own.“Our
 bill continues to give the entities the right to censor what we do,” 
Steffen said. “It provides remedies through the attorney general. It 
provides a remedy for the individual through statutory damages, and it 
does ultimately level the playing field.”Steffen
 was joined by a state representative and official with the Kansas 
Republican Party in asking the Senate Federal and State Affairs 
Committee to give the bill a stamp of approval. Opponents said this bill
 would violate the First Amendment and open the door for costly legal 
battles.Rep.
 Tatum Lee-Hahn, R-Ness City, described the removal of social media 
posts as an attack on the liberties of rural America. Laura Tawater, a 
Kansas Republican Party officer who attended Jan. 6 Capitol riot and <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2021/01/14/kansas-legislators-weigh-security-risk-as-police-gear-up-for-threat-of-violence/?emci=82ac7f3c-5c57-eb11-a607-00155d43c992&amp;emdi=ea000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&amp;ceid=%7B%7BContactsEmailID%7D%7D" target="_blank">came under fire for an inflammatory and false post on her Facebook page</a>, also testified in support of the bill.“RIGGED ELECTION!” Tawater
 wrote on her Facebook page on the morning of the insurrection. 
“Communists hijacked our country and destroyed our election process. 
TAKE IT BACK PATRIOTS. #GeorgiaWasStolen #LiberityOrDeath 
#AmericanRevolution”Sen.
 Oletha Faust-Goudeau, D-Wichita, questioned how this law in Kansas 
would work within the bigger picture of federal law around social media.
 Steffen said Kansas is but a grain of sand to these platforms, so they 
have been working with other state legislatures to pass this bill across
 the county.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1616693775904.png" alt="Steve Delbianco, president and CEO of NetChoice, noted similar efforts are already being shot down, like in Utah. The bill would violate First Amendment rights, he said. (Screen capture of Kansas Legislature YouTube by Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Steve Delbianco, president and CEO of NetChoice, noted similar efforts are already being shot down, like in Utah. The bill would violate First Amendment rights, he said. (Screen capture of Kansas Legislature YouTube by Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>However,
 these efforts are already hitting roadblocks. On Tuesday, a similar 
bill was vetoed when it arrived at the desk of Republican Utah Gov. 
Spencer Cox. Cox too expressed frustration, but like tech advocates who 
testified in Kansas Wednesday, he was unsure this bill would stand up 
against legal challenges.Steve
 Delbianco, president and CEO of NetChoice, an internet free speech 
advocacy and lobbying group, described himself as a lifelong 
conservative. NetChoice members include companies like Amazon, Google, 
Facebook and Twitter.Delbianco
 recalled going door-to-door campaigning for Richard Nixon in a time 
when communicating across a broad spectrum of independent and moderate 
individuals through technology like social media was impossible. That is
 why a bill he said would alienate people who identify as moderate was 
so alarming to him.While
 Delbianco said he too was frustrated by what he felt was unequal 
management of content by social media, but the issue with the measure 
boils down to a violation of First Amendment rights.“The
 First Amendment prohibits government from compelling people or 
newspapers or social media to carry speech that they don’t want to 
display,” Delbianco said. “So if SB 187 will likely be enjoined and 
overturned on First Amendment grounds, what happens next? All you’ll 
have done is to encourage moderators by confirming that state 
governments cannot violate the First Amendment.”Instead,
 Delbianco urged those who are frustrated to use other, 
conservative-oriented social media platforms to vent while maintaining a
 “town hall voice” on widely used platforms like Twitter.Tyler
 Diers, of Midwest TechNet, said the bill also runs contrary to federal 
rules empowering online intermediaries to remove harmful content under 
the same immunity that exists in “real-world, offline contexts.”Additionally,
 social media companies already understand their responsibility to 
censor material in an unbiased manner, Diers said. However, with 
hundreds of thousands of posts each day, some errors will inevitably 
occur, he said.“It
 would be fundamentally unfair to implement such a draconian penalty for
 instances where code misfired, or a simple mistake was made,” Diers 
said. “As written, the scope of the bill will also affect many other 
businesses as well, such as news sites, platforms for hosting reviews 
and comments, business to business services, and educational learning 
platforms.”

Kan. GOP promotes effort to preserve political expression on social media