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The real purpose of Trump’s executive order is intimidating social media companies
Trump's latest execution order has sparked some debate. From Media Matters [mediamatters.org]
President Donald Trump capped off a multiday tantrum at Twitter for appending a mild fact check to one of his false tweets by retaliating with the power of the federal government. The executive order he signed Thursday is slapdash [twitter.com] and incoherent [nbcnews.com], rooted in a false premise [cnn.com], hypocritical [twitter.com] and potentially unconstitutional [cnbc.com], legally unenforceable [vox.com] yet dangerously authoritarian [vanityfair.com], with sections that read like a Fox News screed. [cnn.com]
But to analyze the executive order’s flaws is to miss the point entirely.
Trump doesn’t actually care about making good policy, or about the underlying issues involved with regulating social media platforms. He cares about raising the cost of defiance until his perceived enemies break, and that’s what his executive order is intended to do. Even if it never fully takes effect or is thrown out by the courts, it forces Twitter to expend resources fighting it -- but if the company bends to Trump and does what he wants, maybe it will just go away.
So the Execution Order is just a SLAPP lawsuit? Hmm.
Steve Doocy of all people, the notoriously stupid [mediamatters.org] Fox & Friends host who is one of the president’s favorite cable news personalities, inadvertedly nailed [twitter.com] it on Wednesday. Social media companies would face “a big headache” if Trump tried to repeal the section of federal law that the executive order targets, he exclaimed, so “they might think twice about putting a footnote on a tweet from the president of the United States.”
Trump is drawing a line between companies that defy him and are punished and those that work to benefit him and receive praise. Hours after Trump said that he would shut down Twitter if he could, he lauded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for criticizing Twitter’s decision to fact-check him. Zuckerberg is the poster child [mediamatters.org] for what Trump wants from the head of a social media company. The Republican political operatives he hired to run Facebook’s policy wing have carved out exemptions from the site’s rules for Trump and his media allies. Trump is making clear that it is in the interests of other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube to adopt that same corporate strategy -- and he will continue to raise the temperature until they do.
Yep, better think twice! Nice little business ya got there, be a shame if something were to happen to it! You can take the "developer" out of New York, but you can't take the New York out of the Trump.
Trump is an authoritarian who views the government as an extension of his will and uses it to chill the speech of his critics. That’s what Thursday’s executive order was really all about.
