A bill is a proposed law, by definition. You're assuming bad faith where there isn't any.

The headlines says "South Carolina bill outlaws websites...". That is dishonest, because of the verb tense. The honest phrasing would be "South Carolina bill would outlaw websites..."

Nobody would say "Terrorist bombed subway" when they meant "Terrorist would have bombed subway" (except that they were stopped, and didn't get the chance).

It seems meepmorp is correct, because in this context, bill already means “proposed law”, so “bill would outlaw” is redundant.

Really? You can't see how the present tense is clearly intended to mislead the reader into believing that these websites are right now outlawed? Sure, it may fail to mislead some readers who are alert to the technical distinction between "bill" and "law". But they will succeed in misleading many readers.

It is my fault for not knowing a definition of a word.

So you're fine with the media trying to exploit common misconceptions to mislead their readers? Maybe they could get you to believe something false if you have the common misconception regarding the meanings of "infer" and "imply". Or how about "flaunt" versus "flout" - getting readers to believe falsehoods with clever use of those words it totally fair game, I guess?

No, that is not okay. But I did some searching, and it did not seem like a common misconception. I was simply ignorant in this situation and somehow got to the age of 35 equating bill and law.

I even went back to this popular kids’ video to confirm if I was misremembering, but I could not find anywhere “official” that refers to bills as passed laws.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbml6WIQPo

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HiZu6SxOaCE

Why are you trying to make them presume bad faith where none exists?

Thanks for correcting me, seems I am mistaken. I was under the impression bills that have been passed were also referred to as bills.

>> Phrasing a proposed bill as if it has taken effect is a standard tactic to evoke extra emotion resulting in extra clicks.

> A bill is a proposed law, by definition. You're assuming bad faith where there isn't any.

All kinds of crazy bills gets proposed that are DOA, especially at the state level. Evaluating some outrage-inducing one for clicks is still bad faith. The real question is "does it have a realistic chance of going anywhere?" If it doesn't, why is it being covered?

However, I can't really judge in this particular case, because the article is paywalled.

It's not a "proposed bill," it's a bill. A bill by definition is a proposed law. If someone reads the word "bill" in a headline and confuses it for a law that has been passed, that says more about that person's lack of engagement in the basic workings of government (or more charitably, just momentarily inattentive reading) than it does about some supposed tactics. Anybody can fool themselves once by eliding the difference between "bill" and "law," but if it keeps happening, blaming the writers for being tricky seems a bit misplaced.