Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is questioning the sincerity of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political war with Mickey Mouse. The conservative businessman said DeSantis has shown more deference to The Walt Disney Co. than his current and well-publicized fight would suggest.
During an April 30 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” his first show, Ramaswamy highlighted an exception written into a 2021 Florida law targeting social media companies that protected Walt Disney, a major Florida businessman. Ramaswamy said signing the law with an exception tailored to Disney made DeSantis beholden to corporate interests.
Ramaswamy was referring to a provision of SB 7072a legislative priority for DeSantis that prohibited social media companies from “voluntarily de-platforming a candidate” and defined such action as “an unfair or deceptive act or practice.”
“So Florida passed this anti-discrimination policy statute, which I applauded at the time,” Ramaswamy said. “It was said that if you operate internet businesses, that includes streaming services like Disney does, that you can’t engage in viewpoint discrimination.
“Now here’s the fun little secret about it. They wrote a last-minute exception to this law for anyone who also runs a theme park over 25 acres in the state of Florida. That’s capitalism d “friends”.
DeSantis “now criticizes crony capitalism,” Ramaswamy said, but DeSantis “was the one who actually passed it into law for the Disney case. So I think that undermines the credibility of his crusade. I’d rather get to root causes instead of doing political stunts.”
We found Ramaswamy’s description of the story to be largely correct. While we heard from Ramaswamy’s team, DeSantis’ office did not respond to inquiries for this story.
DeSantis distanced himself from Disney’s arrangement after signing it on May 24, 2021, according to news reports, and has shown little love for the company since 2022. That was the year Disney objected to the Parents’ Rights to Education Act, which critics called the Don’t Say Gay bill. DeSantis then pushed the Legislature to pass a measure which removed Disney’s special government status from an area that includes the Walt Disney World complex. This led to a legal back-and-forth that has yet to be resolved.
The story of an invoice
Under SB 7072, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook could be fined up to $250,000 a day for banning a state political candidate in Florida from their platforms.
The law was originally thought to benefit former President Donald Trump, who was removed from Facebook and Twitter after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump and DeSantis, a former aide of Trump, they have been at odds in the race. -until DeSantis’ expected entry into the 2024 Republican presidential primary, a race Trump has already entered.
Ramaswamy was right to describe the arrangement as a downsizing of Disney.
The bill text signed by DeSantis defines the term “social media platform” to exclude “any information service, system, Internet search engine, or access software provider operated by a company that owns and operates a theme park or complex of ‘entertainment as defined in section 509.013.’
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The reference at the end of that sentence points to a provision of Florida law that is the source of the “25 acres” terminology that Ramaswamy cited. this define “theme park or entertainment complex” as a “complex consisting of at least 25 contiguous acres owned and controlled by the same business entity and containing permanent exhibits and a variety of recreational activities and having at least 1 million annual visitors “.
There was little mystery at the time that the theme park operator provision was designed to protect Disney, specifically its streaming service, Disney+.
“The idea is to make sure we’re capturing social media companies,” state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, who sponsored the bill in his chamber, told reporters, according to a May 7 report of 2021. Florida News Service. “And in the definition, it hits a threshold where, frankly, Disney+ hits that threshold.”
In other words, Ingoglia said, the exemption was intended to ensure that Disney+ “doesn’t get caught up in this.”
Ramaswamy was also right in labeling the change as a “last minute” provision. The amendment that contained the language was introduced on April 29, 2021, the same day the full bill passed both houses. Previous versions of the bill did not have these references.
After the bill passed, but before he signed it, the News Service of Florida article characterized DeSantis as having “distanced himself” from the Disney split during statements to reporters.
“I think there were concerns about things that I didn’t even think the bill would have an impact on,” DeSantis told reporters.
DeSantis later said he considered vetoing the legislation because of the exclusion, though the Tampa Bay Times reported on emails showing DeSantis’ staff were involved in last-minute negotiations over the language that Disney was proposing for the bill.
Related: DeSantis hit a special Disney cut. His staff helped write it.
In 2023, Florida lawmakers, with DeSantis’ support, passed bills removing other restrictions for Disney, including requiring state inspections of the theme park. monorail service and the reform of its special district.
The fate of the Tech Platforms Act of 2021 now rests with the US Supreme Court, after lower courts blocked enforcement of the law on First Amendment grounds.
Our verdict
Ramaswamy said DeSantis signed “a last-minute exception to an anti-discrimination law for anyone who also operates a theme park larger than 25 acres in Florida,” benefiting Walt Disney Co.
In 2021, DeSantis signed a bill that sought to punish tech companies for removing statewide candidates in Florida from their platforms, a major legislative priority for him. After weeks of consideration, lawmakers in the hours before approval added a cut to the bill to protect Disney, which offers streaming services and has large operations in Florida.
DeSantis signed the bill that included the Disney provision. After the passage, he said he didn’t think the language was necessary, although his staff was involved in late negotiations over the wording.
The statement is accurate, but needs additional information, so we rate it mostly true.
