President Donald Trump's Social Media Executive Order

Overview

President Donald Trump's Social Media Executive Order refers to expected regulations made by President Trump on social media companies. The order, which the President signed May 28th, 2020, comes two days after Twitter fact-checked two of President's tweets. Trump's order to focuses on scaling back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from the actions and comments of its users.

Background

On May 26th, 2020, President Trump tweeted,^[1] "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone…..living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!" The first tweet received more than 131,000 likes and 50,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Shortly after posting, Twitter attached blue warning messages to the tweets. They read, "Get the facts about mail-in ballots" and link to an event page declaring: "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud." ^[2]

Later that day, Trump tweeted, ".@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post……..Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!" The first tweet received more than 226,000 likes and 83,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, left).

The following day, he tweeted,^[3] "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can't let a more sophisticated version of that……..happen again. Just like we can't let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!" Within two days, the tweet received more than 130,000 likes and 46,000 retweets (shown below, right).

On May 27th, 2020, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced that the order would be signed the following day.

Developments

Contents

While the federal government has not officially shared the executive yet, CNN^[4] reviewed a draft and reported that it would target Section 230 of the Communications Act. They continue:

Section 230 of the legislation provides broad immunity to websites that curate and moderate their own platforms, and has been described by legal experts as "the 26 words that created the internet."

It argues that the protections hinge mainly on tech platforms operating in "good faith," and that social media companies have not.

"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," the draft order says. "This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic. When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power."

Online Reaction

On May 27th, Redditor ^[5] dingo8yobb shared the news on the /r/politics subreddit. The post received more than 12,000 points (97% upvoted) and 1,500 comments in less than 24 hours.

The following day, on May 28th, Redditor^[6] throwaway5272 shared the executive order had leaked online. Within 24 hours, the post received more than 2,7000 points (98% upvoted) and 600 comments in less than 24 hours.

Social Media Companies Response

On May 27th, 2020, Mark Zuckerberg appeared on Fox News to discuss the order (shown below). He said:

I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that.

FCC Response

On May 28th, The Verge^[7] reported that Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said, "This does not work. Social media can be frustrating. But an Executive Order that would turn the Federal Communications Commission into the President's speech police is not the answer. It's time for those in Washington to speak up for the First Amendment. History won't be kind to silence."

Taking the opposing view, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said, "That [Section 230] has always said that if you engage in bad faith takedowns, you don't get those bonus protections. I think given what we've seen over the last few weeks, it makes sense to let the public weigh-in and say 'is that really what Congress meant" when they passed and provided those special protections."

Signing

On May 28th, President Trump signed the executive order. Upon signing, he said, "A small handful of social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the United States. They've had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences."

Search Interest

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External References