DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state

[LetMyPeopleVote]

79. Fact check: Headline falsely states that Students have to register their political views in Florida

Salon has had some bad crap lately including attacks on Biden and demands that its readers no longer donate to Democrats. I have seen multiple threads on DU stating that DeathSantis has signed a bill that requires all students to register their political views. Salon made this headline up and this claim is false

Link to tweet

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/fact-check-desantis-florida-students-professors-political-views/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNNp&utm_content=2022-07-08T18%3A20%3A06

The liberal website Salon has changed a headline that had falsely said a bill signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis forces Florida's students and professors to register their political views with the state.

The 2021 law does require public colleges and universities in Florida to administer annual surveys on the subject of "intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity." But contrary to the inaccurate initial Salon headline, the law does not require anybody to register their political views. Students and faculty members can decide whether to participate in the surveys, which are anonymous.

Salon published the headline in June 2021. Its revision on Wednesday, more than a year later, came after the article went viral among some Democrats on Twitter amid talk of a possible DeSantis run for president.

Before Salon's revision, its false claim was promoted this week by various Democratic commentators, by Florida agriculture commissioner and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried (who subsequently deleted the tweet that linked to the Salon article), and even by renowned novelist Stephen King, who has more than 6.7 million Twitter followers and has been a harsh critic of DeSantis.