‘Airbrushing history’: Despite public opposition, Senate panel advances media censorship bill

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. 1/4/23-Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, speaks during the Agriculture Committee, Wednesday at the Capitol in Tallahassee. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

Legislation requiring the permanent removal of news stories from the internet if they contain any false, defamatory or outdated information is now one stop from the Senate floor.

The measure’s sponsor, Tallahassee Republican Sen. Corey Simon, maintains that the change has ‘nothing to do’ with the First Amendment and the protection it confers to the press.

Some lawyers and advocacy groups disagree.

The Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee voted 6-3 for the bill (SB 752), which would require news organizations to permanently delete any report from its web server it learns is untrue, either through a court decision or information it is given that a “reasonable person” would believe.

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

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

That example, of a person not being prosecuted with a crime they were initially arrested for, describes the incident that inspired Simon’s legislation. He filed the bill on behalf of lawyer Barry Richard, the husband of Tallahassee Democratic Rep. Allison Tant, who is cosponsoring SB 752’s House analog (HB 667).

One of Richard’s clients was arrested for a crime in 2017 that a State Attorney later decided not to prosecute due to insufficient evidence. While some news outlets complied with the man’s request that they remove stories about his arrest, one refused to do so on the grounds that its reporting wasn’t inaccurate, just outdated.

“Today, seven years later, if you Google his name you will see him in the orange jumpsuit being accused of a crime,” Richard told members of the committee Tuesday.

Simon said the man “has been given a life sentence for a false accusation.”

Many who argued against SB 752 disagreed. Lawyer James Lake, who teaches and practices defamation law, noted that the headline of the report Richard and Simon take umbrage with clearly states that prosecutors dropped the case against the man.

He said SB 752’s effects would equate to “airbrushing history.”

“There is nothing false about this reporting, and of course the police and court files about this case remain open to the public,” he said. “No one expects arrest and court files to be kept secret.”

Bobby Block, Executive Director of the First Amendment Foundation, asked if news outlets that cover the Governor would have to remove reports or videos of his press conferences if statements he made were later found to be inaccurate or false.

“Under this bill, specifically the ‘reasonable person’ standard, the Governor faces no consequences for his public remarks, but every news outlet that quoted or videoed him is now vulnerable to lawsuits. How does that make sense?” he said. “This bill just doesn’t undermine the press; it breaks fundamental logic.”

Sam Morely, General Counsel for the Florida Press Association, said the better policy would be to correct an existing report, not remove it, since removing it would only guarantee that versions remaining on the internet — as maintained by web archiving sites — are out of date and containing incomplete or inaccurate information.

He added that the bill’s “vague takedown standard” would also affect political ads.

Orlando Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith suggested amending the bill to require publications to instead revise their headlines to be more accurate based on new information.

Several representatives from the progressive Voices of Florida organization and a person speaking for the Commerce Group spoke against SB 752 as well.

Simon appeared unmoved by the feedback, and he had the support of his GOP colleagues on the committee to push through the bill despite “no” votes from Smith and fellow Democratic Sens. Kristen Arrington and Tracie Davis.

“This has nothing to do with infringing on your First Amendment rights. What this does is it removes the fair reporting privilege that you have given up by reporting something knowingly false and keeping it up,” Simon said.

“(We’re) living in the time now when it’s no longer just a newspaper and then you print a retraction and it’s gone forever. We now live in an internet age where it’s lasting forever, and what’s happening … is it’s giving folks who were accused of something falsely a life sentence, and we can’t continue to go down this road where folks are given this life sentence for something that is totally false.”

SB 752, which advanced through the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 8-2 vote earlier this month, will next go to the Senate Rules Committee, after which it would face a floor vote.

HB 667, sponsored by Inverness Republican Rep. J.J. Grow, awaits a hearing before the first of two committees to which it was referred last month.

The bills are spiritual successors to legislation 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 that the change could suppress conservative speech.