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Leaked draft details Trump's likely attack on technology giants:
The Trump Administration is putting the final touches on a sweeping executive order designed to punish online platforms for perceived anti-conservative bias. Legal scholar Kate Klonick obtained a draft of the document and posted it online late Wednesday night.
[...] The document claims that online platforms have been "flagging content as inappropriate even though it does not violate any stated terms of service, making unannounced and unexplained changes to policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints, and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning, no rationale, and no recourse."
The order then lays out several specific policy initiatives that will purportedly promote "free and open debate on the Internet."
First up is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
[...] Trump's draft executive order would ask the Federal Communications Commission to clarify Section 230—specifically a provision shielding companies from liability when they remove objectionable content.
[...] Next, the executive order directs federal agencies to review their ad spending to ensure that no ad dollars go to online platforms that "violate free speech principles."
Another provision asks the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether online platforms are restricting speech "in ways that do not align with those entities' public representations about those practices"—in other words, whether the companies' actual content moderation practices are consistent with their terms of service. The executive order suggests that an inconsistency between policy and practice could constitute an "unfair and deceptive practice" under consumer protection laws.
Trump would also ask the FTC to consider whether large online platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become so big that they've effectively become "the modern public square"—and hence governed by the First Amendment.
[...] Finally, the order directs US Attorney General William Barr to organize a working group of state attorneys general to consider whether online platforms' policies violated state consumer protection laws.
[Ed Note - The following links have been added]
Follow Up Article: Trump is desperate to punish Big Tech but has no good way to do it
The Executive Order: Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Friday May 29 2020, @03:53PM (5 children)
Meanwhile the Department of Education's changing interpretation of "Title IX" rules (starting with the Dear Colleague [ed.gov] letter in 2011) on sexual assault and discrimination was enough to eliminate due process for such alleged crimes on college campuses for the better part of a decade. That wasn't anywhere near an executive order, but it has had far more effect because of the power that Congress had granted the Department of Education to enforce such matters (and control funding for colleges subject to such regulation).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @04:03PM
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-concerning-are-the-trump-administrations-new-title-ix-regulations [newyorker.com]
A good start but the changes didn't go far enough.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @07:17PM (1 child)
The Uncomfortable Truth About Campus Rape Policy [theatlantic.com]
What I find amazing is that Title IX is being used to deny the Title IX rights of men. The "activists" calling for this seem blissfully unaware that they are building counterrevolution against second-wave feminism.
No good comes from this. But I digress from the context in which you brought that up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @09:06PM
political reaction might be a better term if i get your meaning
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @08:22PM (1 child)
Oh, dear, khallow! Did you get all "rapey" with a co-ed? Do you knot see the problem, here? Incels have no rights, any more than whiny precedents on Tweeter-toddler. DeVos is trying to enable conservative gang rapes of young boys by Greek houses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @09:10PM
Don't forget the Sportsball team.
It takes a media campaign to hold those jackasses accountable.