TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — For the third year in a row, Florida lawmakers are pushing legislation to make it easier to sue media outlets and journalists for publishing articles later demonstrated to have falsely put a person in a bad light or hurt their reputation.

Similar bills are moving through both House and Senate committees — but unlike with past failed efforts supported mainly by Republicans, these latest bills also have support from Democrats, some of whom are criminal defense lawyers.

Opponents, though, said it would have a chilling effect on the ability of the media to report criminal activities and expand the types of libel suits that could be filed against journalists.

“Reporting would become a legal minefield and freedom of speech a game of chance,” said Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation.

The main thrust of the bill would require news outlets to permanently remove information within 10 days of being presented with “facts that would cause a reasonable person to conclude that such a statement was false.” If not, they would lose immunity from defamation for reports that rely on public documents or official statements.

“Why are we so committed to keeping false information on the Internet? I am unmoved by conservative or liberal outlets,” said Rep. Michele Raynor, a Democrat and criminal defense attorney from St. Petersburg who co-sponsored the bill. “I have represented people who were actually accused of false crimes. A lot of those people are black and brown folks.”

The committee Raynor sits on approved the bill unanimously. A Senate version of the bill has passed out of two committees mostly along party lines.

The ACLU, Florida Press Association and First Amendment Foundation all oppose the bill, Block said. Conservative bloggers and national religious broadcasters have also written letters against it.

“It is censorship disguised as accountability,” Block said. “Don’t turn Florida into the libel tourist destination of the United States.”

Despite the bill’s language, its sponsor Rep. J.J. Grow, R-Inverness, said he was not trying to remove the media’s immunity privilege. “We are asking that they take the story down from their website.”

The bill was filed on behalf of high-profile lawyer Barry Richard by his spouse, Rep. Alison Tant, a Democrat from Tallahassee. It came about as a result of an experience of a client of his, a Belgian businessman living in Miami who was falsely accused of molesting a child in an apartment complex pool in 2017.

The police investigated the incident and charged the man with child sexual assault, but the state prosecutor declined to file charges for lack of evidence and dropped the case five months later. Richard filed a defamation suit against the parents and grandfather of the child and won a $370,000 jury award for his client in 2023.

Because of the publicity surrounding the case, especially the constant broadcasting of his client in an orange jail jumpsuit and chains, his wife and family had to leave Miami, Richard said. Meanwhile, the image of his client in chains remains on the Internet.

“This doesn’t punish the media for anything and does not create a new liability,” Richard said. The bill contains language that preserves the media’s privilege as long as it acts promptly to remove the offending article.

“The Internet means it stays up forever,” Richard said. This bill says that “If you know it’s not true, you can’t keep it up.”

Block argued that the bill seeks to punish news outlets for doing their job of covering a criminal investigation and reporting the facts. An acquittal “doesn’t erase the fact that an arrest was made and charges were filed,” he said. “If you follow that logic we’d have to erase O.J. Simpson’s car chase and every report on Casey Anthony from history.”

Carol LoCicero, a First Amendment attorney from Tampa, said the bill would expand the exposure to punitive damages and increase the statute of limitations on defamation from five to at least 20 years.

Sam Morley, general counsel for the Florida Press Association, also said the “reasonable person language” was a very vague standard.

“Protected, truthful speech is being forced off the Internet,” Morley said.

Some lawmakers supported the measure because of their own experiences having their past dredged up.

As a Lee County Commissioner in 1997, state Rep. Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, was convicted in federal court of one count of “honest services mail fraud” and served 15 months in prison. The conviction was vacated in 2011.

“I am maligned constantly about my criminal history,” Lopez said. “Obviously, I can’t be a convicted felon and be sitting here.”

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