Draft of Trump’s executive order regulating social media platforms leaks online

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• An initial version of President Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to regulate social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter appeared to have been revealed online.
• The draft order was posted by Kate Klonich, an assistant legal professor at St. John’s University School of Law.
• The order is scheduled to be signed by Trump on Thursday. However, according to legal and tech policy experts, the draft order is “dead on arrival.”

A draft version of the executive order that seeks to regulate social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter appeared to have leaked online days before President Donald Trump is about to sign it.

It was posted on Wednesday by Kate Klonich, assistant legal professor of St. John’s University School of Law.

The draft version calls the attention of social platforms like Facebook, Google and Twitter, and points a specific section of US law that says tech platforms are not liable for anything that is posted and are fairly free to police user-generated content.

The draft order mandates the Federal Communications Commission to examine those regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and to determine whether platforms’ actions to remove or alter user-generated content could renounce these protections.

As noted by the Wall Street Journal, any alteration could make Facebook, Twitter, or other online platforms prone to having lawsuits.

Trump’s threat to regulate social media platforms came earlier this week after Twitter added fact-checking links on his tweets regarding mail-in ballots. Without providing substantial evidence, the president claimed that mail-in ballots were “fraudulent” as the boxes are prone to being “robbed.”

In response to Twitter, Trump accused them of political interfering and stifling “free speech.”

The draft order states that online platforms “are engaging in selective censorship that is hurting our national discourse.”

“Tens of thousands of Americans have reported, among other troubling behaviors, online platforms ‘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,” it says.

The draft order asks the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to make legal action against companies who could be guilty of violating the law or altering contents, which is not aligned with the given policies. It also asks government agencies to ensure there is no budget spent on platforms that control free speech.

Trump is expected to approve the order on Thursday, but legal and tech policy experts told Insider that it is already “dead on arrival.”

Source: Business Insider