IMDb Ignores New Law Banning It From Publishing Actors' Ages Online, Cites Free Speech Violations (betanews.com)

Back in September, the state of California passed a new law that banned sites that offer paid subscriptions, and allow people to post resumes, from publishing individuals' ages. It's a law that has the potential to affect many sites, but it is the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) that hit the headlines. From a report: IMDb was told to remove actors' ages from the site by 1 January, 2017, but the site has failed to take any action. A full week into 2017, IMDb has not only chosen to ignore the new law, but has also filed a lawsuit in a bid to stop California from implementing Assembly Bill No. 1687. The reason? IMDb believes that the law is a violation of the First Amendment and it says the state has "chosen instead to chill free speech and to undermine access to factual information of public interest" rather than trying to tackle age-discrimination in a more meaningful way.

Comments

Re:Only remove it for California

[ichthus]

They're not discriminating, though. Some users of their service might choose to discriminate based on the age data, but IMDB is in the clear here. Citing the first amendment is valid, too. In this case, it's freedom of the press.

Re: Only remove it for California

[dgatwood]

Wikipedia doesn't offer paid accounts. This is a targeted law intended to get that info removed from IMDB. It not only fails first amendment scrutiny, but also arguably fails equal protection scrutiny, as there's no rational reason why a company should be banned from publishing publicly available information merely because it also happens to offer paid accounts for people working in the industry; the law can't make meaningful progress towards a legitimate legislative goal as written, and appears to exist solely to screw over a single company.