State Senate: Republican majority
State House: Republican majority
Governor: Kay Ivey (R)
Attorney General: Steve Marshall (R)
Summary:
A deep-red state in the deep South, Alabama has recently passed laws creating criminal penalties for the use of AI-generated media in political advertising and age-verification requirements for websites with sexual material; HB 172, which provides criminal & civil penalties for distribution of materially deceptive media intended to influence an election, and HB 164 which provides age-verification requirements for the distribution of sexual material harmful to minors through certain adult websites. Other bills introduced but not passed include SB 10 introduced in 2022, which would have created civil penalties for Alabama residents who were censored on social media. Meanwhile, Attorney General Steve Marshall has been very active in his efforts to oppose censorship from the Biden Administration and going after Big Tech, regularly joining coalitions of Republican AGs on letters and amicus briefs.
Key Policymakers:
- Rep. Prince Chestnut [D], Rep. Ben Robbins [R], Rep. Arnold Mooney [R] and Sen. Arthur Orr [R]
- Attorney General Steve Marshall
Legislative Activity:
HB 172 (Signed into Law): Provides criminal & civil penalties for distribution of materially deceptive media intended to influence an election. Introduced by Rep. Prince Chestnut [D], passed both chambers unanimously and signed into law on May 16, 2024.
HB 378/ SB 10 (2022): Prohibits social media companies from taking certain restrictive actions against a user based on content of speech expressed. Introduced by Rep. Arnold Mooney [R] and Sen. Arthur Orr [R] but did not progress.
HB 164 (Signed into Law): Provides age-verification requirements for the distribution of sexual material harmful to minors through certain adult websites, applications and digital and virtual platforms; prohibits the retention of certain personally identifying information; assesses an additional tax on the gross proceeds received through sales, distribution, memberships, subscriptions and performances of material deemed harmful. Introduced by Rep. Ben Robbins [R], passed both chambers unanimously and signed into law on April 9, 2024.
Legal Actions:
Attorney General Steve Marshall Expresses Support for SCOTUS Opinion in Wedding Case. In June 2022, Attorney General Marshall signed onto a 20-state amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to protect the First Amendment rights of business owners. The brief argued in support of 303 Creative and its owner, Lorie Smith, a graphic artist and website designer in Colorado. Smith planned to expand her business into wedding website design, but her religious beliefs prohibited her from promoting same-sex weddings. According to Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, if Smith designed and promoted custom websites for opposite-sex weddings, she would have to design and promote custom websites for same-sex weddings too. Smith alleged that the law violated her First Amendment rights, and the Supreme Court agreed.
On June 30, 2023, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis, which reaffirms that the First Amendment prohibits the government from forcing citizens, including business owners, to speak messages with which they disagree. In the 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court reversed the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision against wedding website owner Lorie Smith.
“The Constitution and our First Amendment prevail. All Americans enjoy the right to freedom of conscience, and that freedom means the government cannot coerce anyone to speak against their deeply held beliefs,” said Attorney General Marshall. “This decision confirms that state and local government are not ‘immune to the demands of the Constitution.’”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry Launch Initiative to Address Social Media Censorship. On August 10, 2021 Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry launched an initiative aimed at addressing censorship on social media platforms. As part of the initiative, the official website of each attorney general now provides a “Social Media Censorship Complaint Form” for the public to report abuses by Big Tech.
Attorney General Marshall and Attorney General Landry are encouraging the public to enlist in the fight against Big Tech censorship, calling on all persons who have been censored online to file a formal complaint. The information provided in these complaints will be kept confidential in accordance with each state’s laws, and will be actively reviewed and thoroughly analyzed to determine whether the reported conduct by social media companies constitutes a violation of federal or state law.
“Big Tech is not the Ministry of Truth. It should concern us all when platforms that hold such tremendous power and influence over information wield that power in contradiction of – and with undisguised disdain for – the foundational American principles of free speech and freedom of the press,” said Attorney General Marshall.”
Attorney General Steve Marshall Calls on Biden Administration to Scrap Disinformation Governance Board. On May 6, 2022 Attorney General Steve Marshall called on President Biden to immediately halt his administration’s planned “Disinformation Governance Board”. “The Biden administration’s plans to set up a government board to decide whether Americans’ speech is either ‘disinformation’ or ‘misinformation’ is an unacceptable and downright alarming encroachment on every citizen’s right to express his or her opinions, engage in political debate, and disagree with the government,” said Attorney General Marshal
Attorney General Marshall joined attorneys general from Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia in writing the letter to the Biden administration.
Attorney General Steve Marshall Files Brief in Support of Florida Free Speech Law Challenged by Netchoice. On September 15, 2021 Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a brief in support of a Florida enacted a law in May 2021 that attempts to regulate social media content policies.Alabama joined Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas in filing an amicus brief in the case, NetChoice LLC v. Moody, on September 14, 2021. “The State of Alabama is keenly aware of the menace of Big Tech censorship, and has recently launched – along with the State of Louisiana – a ‘Social Media Censorship Complaint Form’ that allows members of the public to file a formal complaint if they have been censored on social media,” said Attorney General Marshall. “Big Tech censorship is – in a word – un-American. I ask that the public enlist in the fight to end it.”
In June 2024, the Supreme Court agreed with the Netchoice challenge and ruled that both the Texas and Florida laws were likely unconstitutional. The decision emphasized that online platforms have a First Amendment right to make editorial decisions about the content they host, including whether to publish, block, promote, or demote content. The Supreme Court unanimously vacated and remanded the judgments of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, holding that neither the Fifth Circuit nor the Eleventh Circuit conducted a proper analysis of the facial First Amendment challenges to Florida and Texas laws that regulate large internet platforms.
Attorney General Marshall Files Brief Supporting National TikTok Ban. On August 5, 2024 Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in asking the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to uphold the national TikTok divest-or-ban legislation passed by Congress earlier this year. The federal law bans TikTok in the United States if Chinese-owned ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, does not sell its stake in the platform. ByteDance and TikTok sued the federal government following the ban. “All users of TikTok must understand that every click, location, and recording is used as intelligence that we have ample reason to believe is available to the Chinese Communist Party. Americans asked for Congress to take action against this intrusion by a top foreign adversary, and Congress acted,” Attorney General Marshall said. “We are urging the courts to uphold the lower court’s decision and enforce this critical national security law.”
The coalition’s brief is urging the court to deny TikTok’s petition as it is within Congress’s power to act on matters of national security and foreign affairs. The brief claims TikTok is a threat to national security and consumer privacy as the company collects user data that is then accessible to a foreign adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, creating both privacy and security concerns for America.
Attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah also joined the brief led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares.
AG Marshall Joins Multi-State Murthy v Missouri Amicus Brief. This collaborative effort to sue the Biden Administration for working with social media companies to censor critics of covid policies was initiated by five individual plaintiffs and Missouri AG Andrew Bailey. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga took part in the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on March 18, 2024. Previous AG and current governor Jeff Landry had joined the Missouri suit in 2022. On February 9, 2024 Montana AG Austin Knudsen led a coalition of 16 Republican AGs in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting Missouri and respondents. Joining him were the AGs from Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Arizona Legislature.
In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the plaintiffs did not have a legal right (known as “standing”) to a preliminary injunction. Siding with the Biden Administration’s argument that the plaintiffs had not shown their injuries were attributable to the government, the majority cited the lack of any “concrete link” between the speech restrictions claimed by the plaintiffs and the conduct of government officials.