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posted by chromas on Friday May 29 2020, @02:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the two-minutes-hate dept.

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


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by hemocyanin on Friday May 29 2020, @05:18PM (5 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Friday May 29 2020, @05:18PM (#1000627) Journal

    You won't make any money. SN doesn't moderate -- users moderate -- and so it would keep its CDA protection.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @01:21AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @01:21AM (#1000870)

    Your argument won't hold up in court. Someone may have clickyclickyed, but SoylentNews' servers and code did the mod.

    • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:10AM (3 children)

      by Mykl (1112) on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:10AM (#1000931)

      Nice try.

      "Well sure, I pulled the trigger, but it was the gun what done the firing of the bullet!"

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @01:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @01:01PM (#1001009)

        Servers don't mod people! People mod people!

      • (Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Saturday May 30 2020, @01:02PM

        by SpockLogic (2762) on Saturday May 30 2020, @01:02PM (#1001010)

        Fuck Trump and the staircase he rode down on.

        --
        Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @08:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2020, @08:24PM (#1001488)

        Well, when the disputed law literally says, "doesn't matter who pulls the trigger, the gun owner is responsible," they are responsible.