The bill that would allow Jimmy Kimmel to sue Brendan Carr is here

Under a new bipartisan bill, Americans could sue for damages if a government official illegally tries to force a social media, AI, or streaming company to remove his or her posts — regardless of whether the platform actually does so.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced the bill Jawbone law on Thursday, which, in addition to allowing individuals to sue for these types of damages, would create new transparency requirements for government communications with social media, artificial intelligence, and streaming companies.

This could enable someone like Jimmy Kimmel to sue FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who threatened TV stations’ broadcast licenses after the comedian made a joke that Carr didn’t like in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. (kar He denied it The comments were threats.) It could also empower less popular social media users whose posts about medical misinformation or criticism of Kirk were removed or targeted, if they believed it was due to government coercion.

Cruz The first raised the bill In the wake of Carr’s comments about Kimmel, which the senator described as “just out of good company.” But he said he has been working on the bill since before that incident, and has repeatedly criticized Biden administration officials’ messaging to social media companies about medical misinformation during the pandemic, which has become… Subject of a case before the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court decided that the plaintiffs had no basis to bring the lawsuit, and its ruling found there was no clear evidence that the platforms were moderated by government coercion.)

Bipartisan sponsorship and a group of supporters including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University could lend credibility to the bill. Cruz and Wyden’s statements point the finger at the other party’s administration for allegedly being complicit in the actions they seek to suppress. “The Biden administration has weaponized the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to pressure Big Tech companies to ‘cancel’ Americans who spoke out against vaccine mandates and election fraud,” Cruz charged. “An glaring example is Trump threatening cable companies because he doesn’t like their late-night shows, but the obfuscation is not partisan, and it’s not new,” Wyden said. If the bill passes, it could make such incidents the subject of costly legal battles, as well as bitter political fights.