Bill to loosen media protections, compel outlets to remove online content advances in Senate
TALLAHASSEE, FLA. 1/4/23-Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, chairs his first meeting of the Senate Education Pre-K-12 Committee, Wednesday at the Capitol in Tallahassee. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

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‘We have to have freedom of speech, but it needs to be with integrity.’

Under a bill advancing in the Legislature’s upper chamber, media outlets would have to remove false, defamatory, or outdated reports from their websites.

Proponents of the measure say it’s a needed update to legal standards that did not contemplate the internet’s ubiquity.

Critics contend it will do far more harm than good.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 8-2 for SB 752, Florida’s latest bill to erode the First Amendment protections media outlets have long enjoyed.

If passed, it would require a news publication or broadcast station to permanently delete any report on its web server if it learns, either through a court decision or information that a “reasonable person” would believe, that the report contains false or defamatory information.

If an outlet refuses to take down the story, it will lose fair report privilege considerations in defamation and libel lawsuits.

The site must erase the story even if just one word or sentence is incorrect. Stories that no longer reflect up-to-date information, such as the exoneration or nonprosecution of someone, would also have to be removed.

The bill would also revise Florida law so that the statute of limitations for legal action begins on the last day the report was accessible online rather than when it was published.

Tallahassee Republican Sen. Corey Simon, the bill’s sponsor, said state law today provides that if a publication or broadcast outlet publishes falsehoods or defamatory statements, they are under no obligation to remove the information online.

“This can be devastating to a person because the false information will pop up any time someone searches the victim’s name,” he said. “And no one hires anyone without doing such a search.”

Sen. Corey Simon, a Tallahassee Republican, says media outlets acting in bad faith shouldn’t have the same protections as those acting responsibly. Image via Colin Hackley/Florida Politics.

Simon filed the bill on behalf of lawyer Barry Richard, the husband of Tallahassee Democratic Rep. Allison Tant. Its inspiration is the story of one of Richard’s Miami clients, who was accused of a crime in 2017 for which the State Attorney declined to prosecute due to insufficient evidence. The man later sued his accusers for defamation and won.

But more than seven years later, Richard told the Committee that a Google search of his client’s name produced images of the man in shackles and an orange jumpsuit alongside reporting that only listed the charges he could have faced.

“He was a successful executive businessman,” Richard said. “He has been called multiple times by headhunters because of companies that were interested in interviewing him. They set up interviews, but before he arrives, every time, it’s canceled because nobody hires anymore without Googling a name.”

Simon said his legislation seeks to compel outlets to remove such stories, even if the reporting in them is accurate and factual.

“In the event that case has run its course and they are found to be (innocent), we’re asking that story be taken down,” he said.

Simon confirmed his bill applies only to the original poster of the report, not to other outlets that pick up the news and refer to it. He added that it also doesn’t apply to comments on news websites or posts on social media “because that steps on … First Amendment rights, and we’re not going to do that.”

St. Augustine Republican Sen. Tom Leek, a lawyer by training, called SB 752 “a very good bill.” He said long-standing protections for media did not consider the internet, and new rules are needed to protect people from reputational harm.

“In the old days, that picture of a guy in shackles and an orange jumpsuit would have ended up on the bottom of somebody’s birdcage or cat box and then into the archives, and it would be done,” he said.

Tamarac Democratic Sen. Rosalind Osgood agreed and complained of being a frequent target of denigration by her hometown newspaper.

“As elected officials, people think they can just say what they want to say and lie on you and drag you, and nothing is done about it. And it hurts your kids. It hurts your reputation,” she said. “We have to have freedom of speech, but it needs to be with integrity.”

Others saw the potential for negative impacts.

Boca Raton Democratic Sen. Tina Scott Polsky said what happened to Richard’s client was unfortunate and that the outlet should have taken the story down voluntarily. But it didn’t report anything inaccurately.

“It doesn’t take away from the fact that it happened, and that’s what news is,” she said. “(This bill) is just clunky, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. There is so much attack on the media now because of our President, because of our Governor. There are lawsuits left and right against very valid news organizations, and this is only going to feed into that frenzy.”

Polsky and Boynton Beach Democratic Sen. Lori Berman, a fellow lawyer, voted against SB 752.

Tina Polsky said the provision in Simon’s bill requiring news sites to remove reporting on arrests or accusations if the person is later cleared or not charged is unreasonable. “This is not defamation,” she said. “This is just (that) the story ended up a different way than how they originally presented it, and now they’re being told they must take it down.”

James Lake, a lawyer who teaches and practices defamation law, told the panel that the bill contradicts the Legislature’s recent efforts on tort reform. He warned that, as written, the measure’s removal of fair report privilege protections could make anyone, including conservative commentators, subject to defamation suits.

Sam Morley, general counsel for the Florida Press Association, argued the bill is too vague, citing, among other things, its removal requirement that could conceivably extend to campaign and political ads.

Archive sites and online republications have essentially made most of what is posted online permanent in some fashion, he said, and Simon’s proposal would prevent news outlets from doing what they’ve traditionally done to address inadvertent falsehoods or inaccuracies: correcting the story and noting that correction.

“Why require the publisher to take down the version of the story containing a correction or an apology?” he said. “If you do that, the only version of (the report) that will continue to live on the internet will be the original, false version.”

SB 752 and its House analog (HB 667) by Inverness Republican Rep. J.J. Grow are spiritual successors to bills Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade unsuccessfully carried in 2023 and 2024.

Last year’s version of Andrade’s legislation, which had Senate support from Lake Mary Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur, would have lowered the bar in defamation lawsuits by shifting the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the defendant. It also would have required courts to accept as fact that if a defamatory statement about a public figure is published and the statement relied on an anonymous source, the publisher acted with malice.

Gov. Ron DeSantis boosted the concept in 2023 to hold national media outlets accountable. Still, Andrade’s bill drew the ire of several conservative outlets and criticism from Stephen Miller, a policy adviser to President Donald Trump, who suggested the change could suppress conservative speech.

SB 752 will next go to the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee, after which it has one more stop before reaching a floor vote. HB 667 awaits a hearing before the first of two committees to which it was referred.

Jesse Scheckner

Jesse Scheckner has covered South Florida with a focus on Miami-Dade County since 2012. His work has been recognized by the Hearst Foundation, Society of Professional Journalists, Florida Society of News Editors, Florida MMA Awards and Miami New Times. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @JesseScheckner.


10 comments

  • Earl Pitts "Media Expert" American

    March 12, 2025 at 9:00 pm

    The Dook 4 Brains left hates anything that keeps them from lying.
    Earl Pitts “Media Expert” American

    Reply

  • Paul

    March 12, 2025 at 9:06 pm

    These guys are lawyers?
    This legislation decimates 1st Amendment protections.

    Reply

    • Paul Passarelli

      March 13, 2025 at 11:04 am

      Sheesh! I hate this editor sometimes.

      I also wrote: Libraries & “The Wayback Machine”

      Reply

  • PeterH

    March 12, 2025 at 9:45 pm

    Fox “News” will cease to exist!
    🤡🤡

    Reply

    • Paul Passarelli

      March 13, 2025 at 11:29 am

      Pfft! Well, this cockamamie law is unenforceable, unconstitutional, and rather a bad idea. See my comment below. Then resume reading here.

      No, the lying Leftist media will accumulate so many stories under the red flags,that the web crawlers will no longer bother with them, and their relevance will decline.

      They will still appeal to the Useful Idiots — for a while at least. But their ad revenue will dry up, except for the propagandists who *KNOW* that they are paying to circulate Fake News.

      Eventually the distinction will be too obvious to ignore.

      Reply

  • Paul Troon

    March 13, 2025 at 6:43 am

    I can’t think of a more pusillanimous passel of poltroons than today’s “journalists,” and the reason why they live so far on the fringes of respectability is that they have our First Amendment to hide their sins behind.
    It’s embarrassing, or should be, to consider that the media has to be collared and shackled like this when they should be proud to stand up and admit when they are wrong without force of law. If they did have the integrity and guts to admit to error without being bludgeoned into it with the law, they would find their reputation among their readers and viewers would swiftly recover from the present abyss. Can you imagine the impact of CNN beginning a report by saying, “Evidence indicates President Trump is working hard to keep his campaign promises, like them or not.” That’s never gonna happen. They could never get the right expression on their collective face: an expression of studied neutrality.

    Reply

  • Tom

    March 13, 2025 at 8:05 am

    So are they going to consider social media as a media outlet? Now that would liven things up. Cable news and traditional news papers don’t garner much attention anymore which is why they’re all going broke so this seems like a nothing burger other than stifling first amendment speech unless it’s because thin skinned politicians can’t stand seeing negative news about themselves.

    Reply

  • Bill Pollard

    March 13, 2025 at 10:40 am

    Earl Pitts content would be at the top of the list of online content to be removed if this bill becomes law. No truth to any of his stuff.

    Reply

  • Paul Passarelli

    March 13, 2025 at 11:00 am

    This is a dangerous law!!!
    Will the libraries also be commanded/compelled to remove stories from old Microfiche(tm) spools as well? Obviously it cannot. And even if is says so, the requirement is impossible to achieve.

    Rather than removal, it would be better to insist that the stories be wrapped in a frame that indicates the date & time the story was proven to be false or in error. The original story stays, but can only be accessed after the reader (or bot) acknowledges that the story has been superseded. This places the onus on the consumer of the information, not the original publisher.

    As for the publishers, failure to comply with that requirement would be an action (or inaction) which could reasonably be expected to carry penalties. Simply deleting published material only leaves room for the last archival copy of the false story to become the authoritative source. I don’t think that’s what the authors want.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not fond of the fake stories that were published, but I feel it’s better that those stories *STAY* in place, wrapped with a red ribbon of shame, on the reporter that wrote, and the publisher that rushed to destroy reputations, before verifying their sources.

    Good people get smeared in the public forum all the time. What better proof that the accusations were vindictive to have them all readily seen, and shown to have been false?

    Reply

  • SB Champs

    March 13, 2025 at 3:06 pm

    Wouldn’t Corey Simon’s playing(non) days with the Eagles be considered fraudulent?

    Reply

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