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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: 2) by Thexalon on Friday May 29 2020, @06:12PM (2 children)
So, let's take this scenario, which is a very real possibility:
1. Twitter flags the president saying something about his statement the president doesn't like.
2. The president, as a private citizen, sues them for $10 billion in defamation damages.
3. Twitter spends $1 million in legal fees in court demonstrating that what they said isn't libel (e.g. it's something they reasonably believed to be true).
How exactly is that different in effect from the president getting to fine Twitter or any other company he wants to target $1 million for saying things he doesn't like?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Friday May 29 2020, @06:18PM
Clearly that immunity is worth something -- are you saying that when a company intentionally fails to meet the requirements for an immunity law, it should get immunity anyway? What is that -- the new Democrat fascism and we must support bigTech uber alles, even over the rule of law???
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @08:23PM
In most civilized countries the head of state is not allowed to sue, for exactly this reason. If the head of state wants to bring it suit, it must be done by the state, like an Attorney General, the Ministry of the Interior, or similar.