Officials said on Wednesday that Trump will sign a decree on social media companies on Thursday.
Washington:
US President Donald Trump should order the revision of a law that has long protected Twitter, Facebook and Google Alphabet from liability for material published by their users, according to a draft decree and a source close to the situation.
News of the order comes after Trump threatened to shut down websites he accused of stifling Conservative voices after Twitter dispute after the company decided to tag Trump’s tweets on allegations of unsubstantiated fraud in postal voting with a warning urging readers to check the facts of the posts.
The order, a copy of which has been seen by Reuters, may change before being finalized. Officials said on Wednesday that Trump will sign a decree on social media companies on Thursday.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decree would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to propose and clarify regulations under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law largely exempting online platforms from legal liability for the material their users publish. . Such changes could expose tech companies to more lawsuits.
The order requires the FCC to consider whether actions related to content publishing by social media companies should potentially cause the platform to lose its protections under section 230.
It requires the agency to check if a social media platform is using deceptive policies to moderate content and if its policies are inconsistent with its terms of service.
The draft order also says that the White House Digital Strategy Office will reinstate a tool to help citizens report online censorship.
Called the White House Technical Bias Notification Tool, it will collect online censorship complaints and submit them to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
It requires the FTC to “consider taking action”, to determine whether the complaints break the law, to prepare a report describing those complaints and to make it public.
The draft order also requires the Attorney General to establish a task force comprising state attorneys general to examine the application of state laws that prohibit online platforms from engaging in unfair and deceptive acts.
The working group will also monitor or create user watchlists based on their interactions with content or other users.
Federal spending on online advertising will also be examined by US government agencies to ensure that there are no speech restrictions by the platform involved.
It requires the head of each agency to report its findings to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, within 30 days of the date of this order.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
