COLORADO: Senate Bill 86: Social media companies as agents of the state.

At its core, Senate Bill 86 seeks to regulate social media platforms by imposing strict requirements on content moderation, user removals, and law enforcement cooperation. Among the bill’s most concerning provisions is the requirement that social media companies determine within 72 hours whether a user has violated the platform’s policies or state and federal law. If a violation is found, the company must remove the user within 24 hours—a mandate that effectively deputizes private companies to police speech at the behest of the state.

This rushed enforcement process leaves little room for due process or thoughtful review. Instead, it incentivizes social media companies to err on the side of censorship rather than risk punishment under Colorado’s broad “deceptive trade practices” statute. The likely outcome? More voices silenced, more accounts banned, and an increasingly sanitized digital space where only state-approved speech is permitted.

Further, the bill’s vague definitions of prohibited activity—such as “subject use” violations that include selling illicit substances or firearms—open the door to arbitrary enforcement and politically motivated deplatforming. The government shouldn’t be in the business of deciding what speech is acceptable, nor should it coerce private platforms into acting as enforcers of an ill-defined and ever-changing set of online restrictions.

The bill looks an awful lot like California’s AB 587 which just had a major provision slapped down by the Ninth.

Update: Second link removed pending a look into a missing PDF and other oddities.