Even more incredibly, the Eleventh Circuit literally seems to suggest that states can regulate all sorts of speech that might make people more interested in content as “features” rather than speech. CCIA had pointed out that the law is not at all content neutral because it puts rules on internet speech that doesn’t apply to speech in other mediums, and uses “cliffhangers” in books as an example.

In particular, CCIA emphasizes that HB3 prohibits addictive features only on websites, not on other “services that disseminate speech”—like, for instance, “books that end in cliffhangers.”

The Eleventh Circuit dismisses this in a footnote… suggesting that cliffhangers and other tricks to get people to read more in books can be regulated because they’re “features” not “speech.”

Further, the analogy to literary devices that make books more engaging—like cliffhangers, shorter chapters, or serialization—simply reinforces Florida’s contention that it’s not focused on speech and the accompanying ideas, topics, and messages, but rather on features that in and of themselves are agnostic as to content.

I am… flummoxed by this. Cliffhangers are features, not speech? Have any of these judges ever read a book? Short chapters are features not speech? What? Under the logic of this ruling, a state could issue a ban on short chapters and cliffhangers as being too “addictive” and the Eleventh Circuit says that would pass intermediate scrutiny and be just fine.