Twitter’s decision to fact-check Donald Trump has prompted the president to sign an executive order that’s intended to prevent US social media companies from censoring conservative viewpoints.
The goal is to amend a US law that shields internet companies from getting sued when they host user content found to be illegal or objectionable. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the internet provider simply needs to make a “good faith” effort to take down the content after being notified of its existence.
Trump now wants to “remove or change” Section 230, claiming the law has paved the way for companies to gain monopolistic control of the internet. In a Thursday press availability in the Oval Office, the president specifically called out Twitter after the company fact-checked two of his tweets concerning mail-in balloting causing voter fraud.
“The choices that Twitter makes when it chooses to suppress, edit, blacklist or shadow ban are editorial decisions, pure and simple,” he claimed. “In those moments, Twitter ceases to be a neutral public platform and become an editor with a viewpoint.
“And I think we can say that about others also. Whether you’re looking at Google, Facebook, and perhaps others,” he added.
Via today’s executive order, the president plans on challenging Section 230 in three main ways:
-
He’s calling on the Federal Communications Commission to clarify the scope of the law, and whether the legal protections should apply to companies acting in bad faith and caught conspiring to censor users.
-
The executive order claims social media companies are engaging in “unfair and deceptive acts” when they block or ban users. So Trump wants the Federal Trade Commission to consider investigating.
-
US Attorney General William Barr is being tasked with developing a federal bill to amend Section 230. He’s also going to work to promote state legislation to prevent internet companies from engaging in unfair, deceptive acts. Specifically, Barr will look into wrongdoings with content getting suppressed over political views and whether internet companies are relying on third-party contractors and media organizations that show bias.
“This provision, Section 230, has been stretched way beyond its original intention,” Barr said at the White House today. “And people feel that on both sides of the aisle.”
How Trump might try to amend the law was left unsaid. But one bill in Congress has proposed only offering the Section 230 legal protections if internet companies implement US government-developed practices on fighting child porn.
So it isn’t hard to imagine Barr advocating for legislation that will condition Section 230 on how internet platforms moderate user-generated content.
Chilling Free Speech
Despite Barr’s claim of bipartisan support, not everyone in Congress agrees with today’s executive order. “I have warned for years that this administration was threatening 230 in order to chill speech and bully companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter into giving him favorable treatment,” US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said in a statement. “Today Trump proved me right. I expect those companies, and every American who participates in online speech, to resist this illegal act by all possible means. Giving in to bullying by this president may be the single most unpatriotic act an American could undertake.”
Getting rid of Section 230 would also unleash a wave of lawsuits against the internet industry, forcing companies to refuse hosting certain content — which is the opposite effect of what Trump wants.
The executive order is bound to spark a legal battle between the Trump administration and social media companies. Expect it to not only cover Section 230, but also the First Amendment, which prohibits the US government from suppressing free speech from private citizens and companies.
“The draft Executive Order disregards the First Amendment and improperly attempts to circumvent Congress by rewriting the law that underlies much of our modern Internet,” tweeted the privacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The order is also expected to face some resistance from the FCC. “As a conservative, I’m troubled voices are stifled by liberal tech leaders. At same time, I’m extremely dedicated to First Amendment which governs much here,” Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a tweet earlier today before the order was published.
However, his fellow GOP Commissioner Brendan Carr said he welcomed Trump’s executive order, and noted the “federal government has provided virtually no guidance on the ‘good faith’ limitation Congress included in Section 230.”
Their Democratic counterpart, Jessica Rosenworcel, argued that the EO would turn the FCC “into the President’s speech police, [which] is not the answer. It’s time for those in Washington to speak up for the First Amendment. History won’t be kind to silence.”
Facebook, Google, and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For more, check out When Trump Takes on Twitter, We All Lose.
