By Michael A. Hancock | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
How SB25-086 tramples the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments in the name of “user protection”
In our political age where virtue signaling often masquerades as policymaking, Colorado Senate Bill 25-086, charmingly titled Protections for Users of Social Media, stands as a masterclass in misdirection. Behind its disarming language and so-called concern for user safety lies a deeply troubling expansion of government power—one that threatens to obliterate the digital boundary between individual freedom and state surveillance.
Let me be frank: SB25-086 is not about protection—it’s about control.
At the heart of the bill is a brazen and unconstitutional attempt to enlist private companies into a pseudo-judicial surveillance apparatus. It requires social media platforms to monitor and analyze the online behavior of Coloradans for potential violations of state law—including gun laws—and take action within 72 hours.
If they determine a violation may have occurred, the platform must ban the user and prevent them from rejoining—no trial, no judge, no appeal.
This is nothing short of delegated state power without due process.
The Founders enshrined in our Constitution the principle that the state cannot act as judge, jury, and executioner. Yet SB25-086 effectively demands that private corporations do just that—decide legal guilt, execute digital punishment, and maintain permanent exile—all without oversight or constitutional accountability.
If this doesn’t trample on the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, it’s hard to imagine what does.
Let’s talk about the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. Under SB25-086, social media companies must maintain extensive databases tracking user interactions, posts, likes, messages—virtually everything. These databases are not for business analytics; they are expressly designed to be shared with and accessed by government officials.
This is the normalization of state-backed surveillance, not for security purposes, but for routine content policing.
And yet, the bill goes even further: it mandates that platforms hand over their internal content moderation protocols—the intellectual property and operational backbone of any modern social platform—to the government. This is not transparency; this is compelled disclosure. It creates an open-ended regulatory gateway for state influence over speech governance, allowing political pressure to dictate moderation decisions.
That alone should alarm anyone who cherishes the First Amendment.
Imagine if this kind of legislation had existed in previous eras.
Would the civil rights movement have survived if private correspondence and organizing were handed to the government under vague definitions of “harmful behavior”?
Would anti-war activists have been deplatformed for breaking state laws?
The danger here is not in how the law “might” be used, but in how it “could” be abused.
The bill’s premise—that platforms must eliminate harmful content within strict timelines—sounds noble, until you realize that it burdens platforms with making legal determinations about speech, expression, and conduct with no legal training, no guidance, and no protection.
Is this effectively turning customer service representatives into courtroom judges?
That isn’t just absurd—it’s authoritarian.
And let’s be clear about the economic consequences: SB25-086 obliterates any sense of market neutrality. Big Tech firms with vast legal departments and compliance budgets might survive this regulatory firestorm. But smaller platforms, startups, and niche service providers—the ones often founded by innovators, entrepreneurs, and community leaders—will drown in legal quicksand.
And consider the cultural fallout. By instilling fear over what’s safe to say online, SB25-086 directly discourages public discourse.
Speech that is edgy, controversial, or politically unpopular will be disproportionately silenced—not because it’s illegal, but because it’s risky to host. If you’re a platform operator facing legal consequences for hosting a post that might violate Colorado law, the path of least resistance is to take it down, no questions asked.
That’s not moderation. That’s censorship by proxy.
What’s perhaps most insidious is the false choice this bill offers: safety or liberty. But we don’t need to surrender our constitutional rights to build a safer internet.
Parental controls, improved reporting systems, and real-time moderation tools already exist—and are constantly improving. We can support better digital hygiene without turning tech companies into state enforcers.
It is said that “the genius of the Constitution is that it imposes limits on the government in order to liberate the individual.” SB25-086 liberates the government at the expense of the individual.
Colorado legislators must reject this bill not because we oppose safety online, but because we understand a deeper truth: a society that trades away its (digital) freedom for the illusion of order ends up with neither.
The internet is not the enemy. Tyranny—especially the kind cloaked in virtue—is.
Michael A. Hancock is a retired high-tech executive, visionary, musician, and composer, exploring diverse interests—from religion and arts to politics and philosophy—offering thoughtful insights on the intersections of culture, innovation, and society.
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Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.