A bill summary said that under current legal precedent, plaintiffs must prove that coercion succeeded in causing removal of or changes to content. The bill would let plaintiffs sue and obtain financial damages from “any government agency or employee that jawbones companies involved in social media, AI, or broadcasting, regardless of whether the jawboning succeeds.”
The bill specifically authorizes financial damages, because under current law, plaintiffs can only obtain injunctions that prevent future or ongoing violations, the summary said. With financial damages, government officials who engage in unlawful censorship could be held accountable even after leaving office. The bill effectively imposes a limit on financial payouts by allowing compensatory damages but not punitive damages.
Convenient “chokepoints” for censorship
The bill also “requires agencies to submit certain communications with social media companies, AI companies, and broadcasters to a portal with detailed public summaries and full access for Congress, helping ensure jawboning does not occur in secret,” the summary said.
The proposed portal would help individuals prove their rights were violated, the summary said. Without this measure, “plaintiffs may struggle to prove jawboning because the government has secretly communicated with the private companies it is coercing. Americans may not even know they were censored by their government,” the summary said.
