Trump ‘revenge’ on social media
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has signed an order seeking to strip social media giants such as Twitter of legal immunity for content on their platforms in a move slammed as a legally dubious act of political revenge.
The executive order calls on government regulators to evaluate if online platforms should be eligible for liability protection for content posted by their millions of users.
If enforced, the action would up-end decades of precedent and treat internet platforms as “publishers” potentially liable for user-generated content.
Mr Trump told reporters at the White House yesterday he acted because big tech firms “have had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences”.
“We can’t let this continue to happen,” he said.
The move came following a tirade from Mr Trump against Twitter after the platform, for the first time, put fact-check notices on two of his tweets, on the increasingly contentious topic of mail-in voting. Twitter said the comments were misleading.
“In those moments, Twitter ceases to be a neutral public platform and they become an editor with a viewpoint,” Mr Trump said.
“And I think we can say that about others also, whether r you’re looking at Google, e, whether you’re looking at Face- - book, perhaps others.”
Mr Trump, who relies heavi- - ly on Twitter to verbally attack k his foes, has long accused the tech giants of targeting conservatives by fact-checking them or removing their posts.
Critics said, however, that Mr Trump had no authority to regulate private internet operators or to change the law sur- - rounding them. The American n Civil Liberties Union called Mr r Trump’s order “a blatant and unconstitutional threat to punish social media companies that displease the president.”