1/ On Friday the Florida legislature passed the @GovRonDeSantis-backed Transparency in Technology Act, attempting to regulate how social media sites moderate content. DeSantis has 15 days to sign the bill, and is expected to. Here's why he shouldn't.

2/ The bill would, in part, force platforms to carry the speech of candidates for office, publish detailed content moderation policies, and moderate content "consistently."

That's going to violate the First Amendment. Ironic, for a bill that's supposedly about free speech.

3/ Florida has tried this once before, with newspapers. In 1974, the Supreme Court struck down a Florida law requiring newspapers to publish responses from candidates who had been criticized in their publication.

4/ Florida claimed that because newspapers were owned largely by a small and powerful group, the law was necessary to protect the public's ability to meaningfully participate in debate without abusive bias by powerful interests with control over the means of communication.

5/ If that sounds familiar, it should: it's exactly the argument being advanced to support legislation regulating social media content moderation.