President Trump has signed the executive order targeting social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook after his tweets were flagged for misleading information about mail-in ballots.
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According to CNN, Trump signed the executive order days after his tweets were flagged for misleading information, and prior to the signing, he warned Twitter and Facebook that he would make the order since it inhibited his “freedom of speech.” During a White House briefing, he said “They’ve had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences.”
The executive order is seeking to target a law that was enforced in 1996 titled Communications Decency Act. Section 230 where it provides immunity for dot com companies who create and moderate their own platforms. Officials have stated that Trump’s order is unconstitutional because it is infringing on the rights of private companies along with trying to bypass the two other branches of government.
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His executive order draft states “in a country that has long cherished the freedom of expression, we cannot allow a limited number of online platforms to hand-pick the speech that Americans may access and convey online and called them “un-American and anti-democratic” because they censor the opinion of those online.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020