Trump threatens social media firms
Effort to regulate likely would require Congress
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump threatened social media companies with new regulation or even shuttering on Wednesday after Twitter added fact checks to two of his tweets. He turned to his Twitter account to tweet his threats.
The president can’t unilaterally regulate or close the companies, and any effort would likely require action by Congress.
His administration shelved a proposed executive order empowering the Federal Communications Commission to regulate technology companies, citing concerns it wouldn’t pass legal muster. But that didn’t stop Trump from issuing strong warnings.
“We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen,” Trump tweeted. Later, also on Twitter, he threatened, “Big Action to follow.”
Trump did not explain his threat Wednesday.
But some Trump allies have questioned whether platforms like Twitter and Facebook should continue to enjoy liability protections as “platforms” under federal law — or be treated more like publishers, which can face lawsuits over content.
“Big tech gets a huge handout from the federal government,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told Fox News. “They get this special immunity, this special immunity from suits and from liability that’s worth billions of dollars to them every year. Why are they getting subsidized by federal taxpayers to censor conservatives, to censor people critical of China?”
Meanwhile, Republicans were turning their fire on one of the Twitter executives responsible for adding the fact checks, Yoel Roth, its head of site integrity.
They pointed to tweets he sent in 2016 and 2017 railing against the president and his allies.
“From their bogus ‘fact check’ of realdonaldtrump to their ‘head of site integrity’ displaying his clear hatred towards Republicans, Twitter’s blatant bias has gone too far,” tweeted Republican National Chairman Chair Ronna Mcdaniel.