New York’s ‘Stop Hiding Hate’ law in effect despite X lawsuit

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — New York’s “Stop Hiding Hate Act” has officially taken effect, requiring large social media companies to submit reports about content moderation policies and enforcement data twice a year. But, X Corp., the company formerly known as Twitter, sued the state in federal court in June 2025, claiming it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, state law, and federal law.

Twitter/X claimed that the law’s true intent is to “generate public controversy about content moderation” and “restrict, limit, disfavor, or censor certain constitutionally protected content on X that the State dislikes.” X described itself as the only platform fighting for its users by challenging the law.

“The lawsuit is still ongoing,” according to a spokesperson from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James Friday.

The law requires platforms to submit their first reports, covering activity from the third quarter of 2025, by January 1. X’s lawsuit in the Southern District of New York sought a permanent injunction against the reporting requirements. Without such an injunction in place, “They still have to submit a report on their policies” by that deadline despite the lawsuit, the AG spokesperson clarified on Friday.

James said on Thursday that the law ensures transparency and accountability, especially as political violence and polarization increase. Signed by Governor Kathy Hochul in December 2024, S895B/A6789B applies to any social media company operating in New York that generated more than $100 million in gross revenue in the previous calendar year.

It mandates detailed, biannual Terms of Service Reports to the attorney general, which she has to make public in a searchable and official online index. X challenged the requirement that companies explain whether and how a company’s terms of service define:

• Hate speech
• Racism
• Extremism
• Radicalization
• Disinformation
• Misinformation
• Harassment
• Foreign political interference

Companies have to detail their content moderation, including how they address the above issues, how they respond to reports from users, and how the content was flagged or dealt with, whether by human employees or automated artificial intelligence. They are supposed to include specific statistics on what gets flagged, the total number of flags, and the total content violations they removed, demonetized, deprioritized, or banned.

Stop Hiding Hate includes fines, with a civil penalty of up to $15,000 per violation per day for failing to report on time, failing to post terms of service, or failing to report accurately. When assessing a penalty, courts must consider whether the social media company made a reasonable, good faith attempt to comply. Plus, there’s a 30-day window for a company can fix their violations before getting dinged.

X argued that the content reporting provisions “impermissibly interfere” with the First Amendment and Article I, Section 8, of the New York Constitution. The lawsuit claimed that the moderation and editorial decisions of companies like X represent free speech.

The company argued that the law compels non-commercial speech and cited the injunction granted against a nearly identical California law. In that case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the law would require a social media company to express “policy opinion about contentious issues.”

According to X, compelling such disclosures amounts to viewpoint discrimination. That’s because the requirements only concern specific content that the state sees as negative, like hate speech, but not for positive categories like “kind speech.”

The company acknowledged that it doesn’t regulate hate speech, racism, or extremism, targeting a “hateful conduct” category instead. And while they don’t focus on the specific terms misinformation or disinformation, X said they do regulate “manipulated, or out-of-context media that may result in widespread confusion on public issues, impact public safety, or cause serious harm.”

X also argued the reporting requirements violate a federal law granting immunity to interactive computer service providers from being sued for their moderation decisions. 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(2)(A) says that a platform can’t be held responsible for “any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material” that the company or a user considers objectionable. X said that forced moderation reports and fines if the attorney general determines the report to be misleading would directly clash with such protections.

Democratic State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Democratic Assemblymember Grace Lee, who sponsored the law in the legislature, said it only requires narrow disclosures so New Yorkers can make informed decisions that align with their personal beliefs. In a statement responding to the lawsuit, they called the law necessary to address hateful rhetoric and disinformation. They said that the current social media landscape “makes it far too easy for bad actors to promote false claims, hatred and dangerous conspiracies online.”

“Transparency and data are essential tools to hold platforms accountable,” Lee said. She noted that the push for accountability came as the Asian American community “felt firsthand how online lies can fuel real-world violence” during COVID.

She and Hoylman-Sigal have said they are confident that the court will reject X’s arguments because the law “does not infringe upon the First Amendment rights of social media companies, nor does it conflict with federal law.”

The sponsors wrote the legislation with the Anti-Defamation League. Hoylman-Sigal pointed to an ADL survey that found 58% of marginalized people reported hate-based harassment online in one year, with LGBTQ+ respondents being the most likely group to experience harassment.

In September 2024, the sponsors refused a request from X to change the bill, which had already passed in the legislature but was not yet signed by Hochul. Citing the company’s “disturbing record,” they reported “drastically higher reports of online hate speech” since Elon Musk bought Twitter. Specifically, they claimed an over 200% increase in posts with racial slurs, a 62% increase in posts with transphobic slurs, and a 91% increase in QAnon-related posts on X in the first few months after the company changed hands. They claimed that Musk personally uses the platform to promote transphobia, anti-Jewish bigotry, anti-immigrant ideology, and election misinformation.

Under Stop Hiding Hate, the platforms also have to offer terms of service in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Yiddish, Bengali, Korean, Haitian Creole, Italian, Arabic, Polish, French, and Urdu, the most common tongues spoken by non-English speakers in New York.