Bipartisan Legislation Targets Coercive Government Censorship

The JAWBONE Act addresses 'jawboning'—where government officials threaten or pressure tech platforms into removing lawful speech—which represents a blind spot in current First Amendment protections. While direct government censorship is clearly unconstitutional, this indirect coercion is harder to detect and challenge, effectively outsourcing censorship to private companies. The legislation would create new legal remedies to combat this form of hidden censorship and protect both individual speech rights and platform integrity.