Trump signs executive order aimed at social media companies

U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his war on social media companies, signing an executive order Thursday challenging the liability protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the internet.

Still, the move appears to be more about politics than substance, as the president aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for applying fact checks to two of his tweets.

Trump said the fact checks were "editorial decisions" by Twitter and amounted to political activism. He said it should cost those companies their protection from lawsuits for what is posted on their platforms.

Trump and his allies, who rely heavily on Twitter to verbally flog their foes, have long accused the tech giants in Silicon Valley of targeting conservatives on social media by fact-checking them or removing their posts.

"We're fed up with it," Trump said, claiming the order would uphold freedom of speech.

Technology industry groups disagreed, saying it would stifle innovation and speech on the internet. And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce objected, "Regardless of the circumstances that led up to this, this is not how public policy is made in the United States."

The order directs executive branch agencies to ask independent rule-making agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, to study whether they can place new regulations on the companies — though experts express doubts much can be done without an act of Congress.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement, "This debate is an important one. The Federal Communications Commission will carefully review any petition for rulemaking filed by the Department of Commerce."

Companies such as Twitter and Facebook are granted liability protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because they are treated as "platforms," rather than "publishers," which can face lawsuits over content.

Protections in new NAFTA

Similar protections are now embedded in the new trade deal with Canada and Mexico — and they were added at the U.S.'s insistence. Chapter 19 of the new NAFTA limits the legal liability of social media companies for what they post, and its inclusion in the deal came at the request of the U.S. administration led by Trump.

Article 19.17 of the NAFTA says the digital services shall not be held liable like publishers would for the content they carry — though the provision includes exemptions for things like protecting against crimes.

A similar executive order was previously considered by the administration but shelved over concerns it couldn't pass legal muster and that it violated conservative principles on deregulation and free speech.

Late Thursday, Twitter's Global Public Policy team called the executive order "a reactionary and politicized approach to a landmark law."

'Clear political bias,' says Trump campaign

"They've had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences," Trump said of social media companies as he prepared to sign the order.

"There is no precedent in American history for so small a number of corporations to control so large a sphere of human interaction."

Trump and his campaign reacted after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots "fraudulent" and predicted "mail boxes will be robbed." Under the tweets, there's now a link reading, "Get the facts about mail-in ballots," which guides users to a page with fact-checks and news stories about Trump's unsubstantiated claims.

Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 presidential election and declared "as president, I will not allow this to happen." His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said Twitter's "clear political bias" had led the campaign to pull "all our advertising from Twitter months ago."

In fact, Twitter banned political advertising last November.

Twitter response

Late Wednesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted, "We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally."

Dorsey added: "This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves."

On the other hand, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Fox News his platform has "a different policy, I think, than Twitter on this."

"I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," he said.

Critics call Trump move illegal

The president's critics, meanwhile, scolded the platforms for allowing him to put forth false or misleading information that could confuse voters.

"Donald Trump's order is plainly illegal," said Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat and advocate for internet freedoms. Trump is "desperately trying to steal for himself the power of the courts and Congress. ... All for the ability to spread unfiltered lies."

Trump's proposal has multiple, serious legal problems and is unlikely to survive a challenge, according to Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a Washington-based organization that represents computer and internet companies.

It would also seem to be an assault on the same online freedom that enabled social media platforms to flourish in the first place — and made them such an effective microphone for Trump and other politicians.

"The irony that is lost here is that if these protections were to go away, social media services would be far more aggressive in moderating content and terminating accounts," Schruers said. "Our vibrant public sphere of discussion would devolve into nothing more than pre-approved soundbites."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was "outrageous" that while Twitter had put a fact-check tag on Trump's tweets asserting massive mail-in election fraud, it had not removed his tweets suggesting without evidence that a TV news host had murdered an aide years ago.

"Their business model is to make money at the expense of the truth and the facts that they know," she said of social media giants, also mentioning Facebook. She said their goal is to avoid taxes "and they don't want to be regulated, so they pander to the White House."

The president and fellow conservatives have been claiming for years that Silicon Valley tech companies are biased against them. But there is no evidence for this — and while many executives and many employees of Twitter, Facebook and Google may lean liberal, the companies have stressed they have no business interest in favouring one political party over the other.

'Get the facts' 

The companies are gearing up to combat misinformation around the November elections. Twitter and Facebook have begun rolling out dozens of new rules to avoid a repeat of the false postings about the candidates and the voting process that marred the 2016 election.

The coronavirus pandemic has escalated the platforms' response, leading them to take actions against politicians — a move they've long resisted — who make misleading claims about the virus.

Last month, Twitter introduced a "Get the Facts" label to direct social media users to news articles from trusted outlets next to tweets containing misleading or disputed information about the virus.

Even as he and his supporters complain of bias on the platform, Trump has used Twitter to build a potent and vocal online following. The president's account currently has more than 80 million followers.

Trump's success on social media suggests that his proposal may be more about politics than any interest in regulation, according to Rutgers University media professor John Pavlik, who studies the impact of technology on society and government.

Pavlik said that by trying to intimidate the platforms now, he's seeking to control how the 2020 campaign plays out online and "about appealing to his base."