State Senators Propose Pennsylvania Law Against Social Media Censorship

Pennsylvania State Senators Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) and Scott Hutchinson (R-Oil City) Thursday announced they would reintroduce a bill proposed in the last legislative session designed to prevent social media platforms from censoring Pennsylvanians. 

Mastriano and Hutchinson introduced the original measure in May 2021. They secured the cosponsorship of four other senators, all Republicans, but the bill did not receive a vote in the Senate Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee. The two lawmakers said new developments impelled them to try again in the new session. They cited the recently released “Twitter files,” internal documents pertaining largely to the social-media company’s decision in late 2020 to deny users access to a New York Post story concerning Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s personal computer.

Critics of Twitter’s leadership before the platform’s acquisition by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have decried the corporation’s decision to bar posts of the report that the younger Biden introduced his then-Vice President father to a major Ukrainian energy executive. Less than one year after that meeting, the vice president urged Ukrainian officials to dismiss a prosecutor investigating that executive’s firm. 

The files also revealed that Yael Roth, who then served as Twitter’s global head for trust and safety, mentioned meeting with administrators of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Program about the laptop story and disputes about the 2020 presidential election. Twitter policies ultimately resulted in the temporary locking of the New York Post’s account, the banning of former President Donald Trump from the platform, and the exclusion of numerous high-profile users who dissented regarding the government’s COVID-19 policies…. (Excerpt from The Pennsylvania Daily)