By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director
A legislative committee Wednesday narrowly endorsed a proposed $150,000 study by the Colorado Attorney General on ways to prevent and combat the spread of misinformation and disinformation after proponents tried to allay concerns the measure threatens First Amendment free speech rights.
“I want to be clear, no one is trying to curtail free speech — on the contrary,” said Sen. Lisa Cutter, D-Jefferson County, sponsor of Senate Bill 24-084. “And I want to remind people this is a study, not legislation allowing the AG to determine anything.”
The bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 3-2 party-line vote, requires the office of Attorney General Phil Weiser to study “how the internet and other media channels, including social media platforms, are used to share and spread misinformation and disinformation.” Among other things, the AG would examine the legal framework governing the regulation of speech and online activities — including the U.S. and Colorado constitutions and Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act — and publish a report on its findings by Mar. 1, 2025.
The AG also would be required to establish an initiative “to encourage respectful engagement and discourse” and to develop a resource bank for schools, organizations and community leaders to “facilitate productive and honest conversations regarding statewide and national issues to help people find common ground.”
Several people testifying against SB 24-084 said they view the bill as a misguided attempt to chill free speech. “What is being proposed here is deeply Orwellian, and I’m truly surprised that the authors of this piece of legislation were not educated enough to see the danger that it poses,” a Vail resident told lawmakers.
But Assistant AG Jefferey Riester said the bill “does not put the attorney general in a position to decide what is or is not mis- or disinformation or what is a fact. It will not put him in a position to decide who can post what and when. What it will do is allow us to study the relevant laws, both state and federal, statutory and constitutional, to understand what is the legal framework when looking at this issue.”
The proposed study, he added, would be like “a law review article … because it will allow us to understand the First Amendment impacts, of what they may or may not have on misinformation. There is no predetermined outcome here.”
Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, voted against the bill, which now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“I don’t believe the attorney general is going to discover in a study anything that hasn’t already been said, done or expanded upon” regarding misinformation and disinformation, he said.
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