Trump to sign order curtailing social media firms' protection

WASHINGTON • US President Donald Trump is expected to order a review of a law that has long protected Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet's Google from being responsible for the material posted by their users, according to a draft executive order and a source familiar with the situation.

News of the executive order comes after Mr Trump threatened to shut down websites he accused of stifling conservative voices, following a dispute with Twitter after the company tagged his tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts.

The order, a draft copy of which was seen by Reuters, could change before it is finalised. Officials said Mr Trump was to sign the executive order yesterday.

The order would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to propose and clarify regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law largely exempting online platforms from legal liability for the material their users post. Such changes could expose tech companies to more lawsuits.

The order also asks the FCC to examine whether actions related to the editing of content by social media companies should potentially lead to the platform forfeiting its protections under Section 230.

It would require the commission to look at whether a social media platform uses deceptive policies to moderate content and if its policies are inconsistent with its terms of service.

The draft order also states that the White House Office of Digital Strategy will reestablish a tool to help citizens report cases of online censorship.

Called the White House Tech Bias Reporting Tool, it will collect complaints of online censorship and submit them to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It requires the FTC to then "consider taking action", look into whether complaints violate the law, develop a report describing such complaints and make the report publicly available.

The draft order also requires the Attorney-General to establish a working group including state attorneys-general that will examine the enforcement of state laws that prohibit online platforms from engaging in unfair and deceptive acts.

The working group will also monitor or create watch lists of users based on their interactions with content or other users.

In an interview with Fox News Channel on Wednesday, Facebook's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said censoring a platform would not be the "right reflex" for a government worried about censorship. "I'll have to understand what they actually would intend to do, but in general I think a government choosing to censor a platform because they're worried about censorship doesn't exactly strike me as the right reflex there," he said.

Facebook left Mr Trump's post on mail-in ballots untouched.

REUTERS

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 29, 2020, with the headline Trump to sign order curtailing social media firms' protection. Subscribe