UPDATE!
*** DETAILS ****
President Trump will reportedly sign an executive order on Thursday that mandates a review of a law that shields companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook from being held liable for the content appearing on their platforms after fact checks for the first time were added to two of his tweets.
The executive order Trump is expected to sign would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to propose and clarify regulations stipulated under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, according to a draft copy obtained by Reuters. Section 230 protects social media platforms from facing lawsuits over what users share, though there are exceptions when it comes to copyright violations and breaches of federal criminal law.
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An alteration to Section 230 could have wide-ranging consequences over how websites moderate comments and other posts shared on their platforms.
The order reportedly requests that the FCC evaluate whether social media companies should lose the Section 230 protections they enjoy if they take actions related to editing content. It also would direct the FCC to review whether any social media company uses deceptive content moderation polices and if they violate their own terms of service.
The final executive order could change before it is signed by Trump, Reuters noted.
A draft of the order also reportedly includes a directive for the White House Office of Digital Strategy to recreate a tool that gives Americans the opportunity to report alleged instances of censorship online. The so-called White House Tech Bias Reporting Tool would receive those complaints and submit them to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
The FTC would then be required to consider taking action and examine whether the complaints violated the law. The attorney general would also be directed to create a working group that assesses content moderation practices from social media companies.
Twitter’s decision on Tuesday to fact-check the president’s tweets represented the first time the social media company has taken that step for one of its most prominent users
An EO for a review doesn’t bother me at all. I’m hoping for it. Much better than the initial ‘shut them down!’ hype.
Do it.
And do it very quickly.
Twitter pushed the nuclear option, Trump is rightfully and correctly responding.