“Those protections were enacted by Congress, so they can only be removed by Congress”
Or by executive order. Congress has to override that with a 2/3 vote.
Also, he can utterly delegitimize them by forbidding any executive branch office to have a FB or Twitter account, or from accessing those sites on government computers or phones. No NASA facebook, no CIA twitter, no US Navy, DOD, HHS, SEC, FCC, no USDA, no USFS, no BLM, etc etc. He can forbid the executive branch from any expenditures with companies that censor based on politics. So no Google and Facebook information services... etc etc.
He has more power than you think.
Say what?
This is pure, unexalted nonsense. Such monumental Constitutional ignorance on this site is disconcerting.
The Red China influence angle is the most promising. National security trumps many other considerations. Would FDR allow Goebbels to “fact-check” his fireside chats? I think not.
Nancy Pelosie has investments in Facebook....I suspect she’ll support FaceBook regardless.
From the Executive branch-— all you list and then some, all cabinet level agencies, and all others under other levels— things like the Bureau of Land Management. National Park Service. Environmental Protection Agency.
In point of fact, any internet platform that performs editing, including shadow banning or algorithmic removal of circulation on a neutral platform.... becomes a publisher and not a provider, and cannot weasel out of their decision to be a publisher by Terms of Use “terms of Art” dodges. This entire thing turns on the issue of being a publisher.
Thus any and all Executive branch responsibilities, DOD and all service branches, DHS (and all of their agencies, ICE,Border Patrol) cannot be part of a Publisher and contribute any Content legally from the Executive of the US government. Content that may be subjected by others to editing and mis-direction. If one substituted the word— “newspaper” for twitter, it would be like allowing the NYTimes to be a medium of communication for government (hmmmm— to the crooked FBI...the reporters are all on the payroll for manipulation of the readers of false information
This EO is brilliant, and a simple argument. The Executive is not run by .... media which publishes. US Law treats this action of publishing with.... liability. Costly.