Trump signs executive order to narrow protections
for social media platforms
Move comes amid president’s feud with Twitter after it
fact-checked him for the first time
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Published
onFri 29 May 2020 01.29 BST
Donald
Trump has fired a shot across the bows of “big tech” companies by signing an
executive order that aims to narrow their protections from liability over the
content posted on their services.
The move
came as the US president stepped up his attacks against social media giants
after Twitter fact-checked him for the first time over a false assertion that
mail-in voting leads to widespread voter fraud.
However, critics said it was the president’s latest
effort to spur controversy and create a distraction as the country passed the
grim milestone of 101,000 deaths from Covid-19. The Trump administration has
faced widespread accusations that it has mishandled the crisis.
“Currently,
social media giants like Twitter received unprecedented viability shield based
on the theory that they are a neutral platform, which they are not,” the US
president said in the Oval Office on Thursday. “We are fed up with it. It is
unfair, and it’s been very unfair.”
Under
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, tech companies currently enjoy
broad immunity from civil lawsuits stemming from what users post because they
are treated as “platforms” rather than “publishers”.
Trump’s
executive order is designed to pressure regulators, including the Federal
Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, to come up with new
rules that would curtail that immunity. It is likely to face legal challenges.
As he
prepared to sign the order, the president added: “They’ve had unchecked power
to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter virtually any form of
communication between private citizens or large public audiences.
“There is
no precedent in American history for so small a number of corporations to
control so large a sphere of human interaction.”
Twitter
responded by calling the executive order a “reactionary and politicized
approach to a landmark law” .
”#Section230
protects American innovation and freedom of expression, and it’s underpinned by
democratic values,” the company said in a tweet. “Attempts to unilaterally
erode it threaten the future of online speech and internet freedoms.
The move
was welcomed by observers who argue that Facebook and Twitter should be held
responsible for their content and subject to the same laws as the New York Times
and other mainstream outlets.
But many in
the business and technology sectors argue the order could curb freedom of
speech on the internet and it conflicts with existing law – which only
Congress, not the president - can change.
Matt
Schruers, the president of the Computer and Communications Industry
Association, told the Associated Press: “The irony that is lost here is that if
these protections were to go away social media services would be far more
aggressive in moderating content and terminating accounts. Our vibrant public
sphere of discussion would devolve into nothing more than preapproved
soundbites.”
Gary
Shapiro, the president and chief executive of the Consumer Technology
Association, said: “We oppose today’s unconstitutional, ill-considered
executive order. The free speech protections in Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act are the legal underpinning of our vibrant US online
economy and our nation’s global digital leadership.
“America’s
internet companies lead the world and it is incredible that our own political
leaders would seek to censor them for political purposes. These same
politicians extensively advertise on them and just a few minutes online will
reveal these platforms contain a multitude of political views.
“Section
230 protects these companies as well as any start-up website which hosts
others’ speech – from community bulletin boards to social media sites to the
Fox News comments section.”
The US
Chamber of Commerce said in a statement: “We believe that free speech and the
right to engage in commerce are foundational to the American free enterprise
system.
“Regardless
of the circumstances that led up to this, this is not how public policy is made
in the United States. An executive order cannot be properly used to change
federal law.”
Many
sceptics regard Trump’s action as politically motivated ahead of the November
election. He and other conservatives have long accused social media companies
of liberal or pro-China bias, even as Twitter has this week allowed the
president to tweet baseless conspiracy theories accusing a TV host of murder.
Ted Cruz, a
Republican senator from Texas, said “big tech” can no longer go unchecked. “For
too long, social media platforms like Twitter have hid behind their opaque
algorithms and Section 230 immunity to target speech with which they disagree
and advance their own political agendas,” he added.
“This
doesn’t just stifle Americans’ free speech; it shapes what Americans see, hear,
and ultimately think about the major issues facing our country, including how
those issues should be addressed and who should be elected to address them.”
Brad
Parscale, the Trump 2020 campaign manager, said on Thursday: “Social media has
been allowed to operate unchecked for years while enjoying the protection of
federal law.
“These
Silicon Valley giants have set themselves up as the arbiters of truth,
censoring or labeling posts they disagree with, but they have shown that they
cannot be trusted to be honest and fair. We have known for a long time that
social media companies have it in for conservatives in general and President Trump
specifically.”
But,
critics say, after Twitter’s intervention on Trump’s false claims about mail-in
voting, the company merely became the latest convenient punchbag for him to
cultivate victimhood, rile up his base – and deflect attention from the coronavirus
pandemic death toll.
Ron Wyden,
a Democratic senator from Oregon, warned: “Donald Trump’s order is plainly
illegal. After driving our country into an economic and health care disaster,
Trump is desperately trying to steal for himself the power of the courts and
Congress to rewrite decades of settled law around Section 230. All for
the ability to spread unfiltered lies.”
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