Troll wars

Treating as a declaration of war the fact that his favorite social media platform fact-checked false statements he made, President Trump has signed an executive order aiming to intimidate private companies like Twitter and Facebook from enforcing basic community standards.

In the name of protecting free speech, Trump tramples it.

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and social media operations are considered platforms, not publishers, under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act. Some grouse at that law, but it crucially enables websites and apps to function as semi-democratic, freeflowing gathering places to which billions of people can contribute. Were the businesses held liable for every user’s every word, they simply couldn’t exist.

At the same time, if Facebook and Twitter are to offer customers a lively, participatory and humane arena for conversation and debate, they must simultaneously set limits, curbing expression from terrorist incitement to dehumanizing anti-Semitism to direct harassment to disinformation campaigns designed to subvert the democratic process.

This is hard to do consistently, and especially dicey with respect to political speech in an election year. Twitter and Facebook make plenty of mistakes. But they have no choice but to try, lest the Silicon Valley companies unleash a Wild West.

Trump’s order undercuts them by empowering the feds to field complaints about platforms’ editorial decisions — then challenge their liability shield if the government deems their decision-making to evince bias.

Next time the president purports to revere the Constitution and private enterprise, remember the utter contempt he shows for both.