§ 129B.005.Applicability of Chapter

Two exemptions marking the outer edges of the chapter.

Subsection (a): the chapter does not apply to a bona fide news or public interest broadcast, website video, report, or event, and may not be construed to affect the rights of a news-gathering organization.

"Bona fide" is the qualifier, and it prevents the exemption being claimed by material dressed as journalism. The definitions provision anchors it by defining a news-gathering organization through documented employment.

The exemption matters because reporting on these subjects can involve material that would otherwise meet the definition, and a chapter reaching it would burden coverage of the harms it addresses.

Subsection (b) is the intermediary protection. An Internet service provider, its affiliates or subsidiaries, a search engine, or a cloud service provider may not be held to have violated the chapter solely for providing access or connection to a website or content not under that provider’s control — including transmission, downloading, intermediate storage, and access software.

The condition is at the end: the protection applies to the extent the provider is not responsible for the creation of the content.

This is a state-law analogue of the federal intermediary immunity, drawn narrowly around conduits rather than platforms. Note that it names cloud service providers, which the older federal provision was not written with in mind.

A social media platform is not on the list, and the verification provision names social media platforms expressly — so a platform meeting the one-third threshold is within the chapter, not exempted by this section.