Trump Issues Executive Order Against Social Media Abuses

It was a long time in coming. It has support by both parties.

President Trump issued an executive order on social media, especially the giants like Facebook and Twitter, who practice censorship, shadow banning, "fact checking" and other acts on a selective basis.

According to Fox News:

Flanked by Attorney General Bill Barr, President Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Thursday that calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) to remove statutory liability protections and cut federal funding for tech companies that engage in censorship and political conduct.

The president's order came just two days after Twitter took the unprecedented step of slapping a "misleading" warning label on two of Trump's tweets concerning the fraud risks of nationwide mail-in balloting. The move immediately backfired: Experts disputed that Trump's tweet was actually misleading, given that mail-in balloting has been linked to ongoing fraud, and Twitter failed to apply the fact-check standard to others. 

At Thursday's signing ceremony, Trump called the fact-check "egregious," and held up a photo of Twitter executive Yoel Roth, who heads up the site's fact-checking operation. Fox News reported on Wednesday that Roth has mocked Trump supporters, called Trump's team "ACTUAL NAZIS," slammed "scary trannies," and called GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a "bag of farts." 

"My executive order calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make it so that social media companies that engage in censoring any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield," the president said.

He added: "My executive order further instructs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prohibit social media companies from engaging in any deceptive acts or practices affecting commerce. This commerce resides in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. ... Additionally, I'm directing the attorney general to work cooperatively with the states ... to enforce their own laws against such deceptive business practices. The states have broad and powerful authority to regulate in this arena." 

Under the CDA, platforms are ordinarily not liable for users' defamatory or otherwise problematic posts under the CDA, while publishers that actively shape content do face liability. Trump's order would empower the federal government to interpret and apply that legislation.

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