Twitter Hates Trump’s Executive Order on Social Media
After Trump issued an executive order that would penalize social media companies found to “silence viewpoints that they dislike,” Twitter said that was dumb.
Emmanuel Dunand/Getty
Twitter isn’t taking President Donald Trump’s new executive order on social media, which would punish companies found to “silence viewpoints that they dislike,” quietly. The social media company’s public policy account responded on Thursday evening: “This EO is a reactionary and politicized approach to a landmark law. #Section230 protects American innovation and freedom of expression, and it’s underpinned by democratic values.” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects social media companies from liability for the vast majority of what users post. On Tuesday, the company added a fact-check label to two of Trump’s tweets that erroneously claimed that mail-in voting would be subject to widespread fraud, which sent the president into a tailspin. He accused the company of election interference.
This EO is a reactionary and politicized approach to a landmark law. #Section230 protects American innovation and freedom of expression, and it’s underpinned by democratic values. Attempts to unilaterally erode it threaten the future of online speech and Internet freedoms.
— Twitter Public Policy (@Policy) May 29, 2020
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