Sen. Ron Wyden called President Trump’s executive order targeting social media platforms a “plainly illegal” attempt to push “unfiltered lies.”
On Thursday, a draft of Trump’s executive order was released, calling for the Federal Communications Commission to review social media companies and the protections they are granted under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which lets them be considered platforms, rather than publishers, to protect them from liability. Wyden, who co-authored the law targeted in Trump’s executive order, said the president did not have the authority to take such action.
“I have warned for years that this administration was threatening 230 in order to chill speech and bully companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter into giving him favorable treatment. Today Trump proved me right. I expect those companies and every American who participates in online speech to resist this illegal act by all possible means,” Wyden said in a statement.
“Giving in to bullying by this president may be the single most unpatriotic act an American could undertake,” he continued. “Donald Trump’s order is plainly illegal. … Trump is desperately trying to steal for himself the power of the courts and Congress to rewrite decades of settled law around Section 230. All for the ability to spread unfiltered lies.”
[Read more: ‘Silly’: Pelosi blasts Trump’s social media executive order]
Sen. Ron Wyden reacts to President Trump’s social media executive order by calling it “plainly illegal” pic.twitter.com/Im3iy0yjqM
— Andrew Blake (@apblake) May 28, 2020
In the draft of the executive order, Trump argued that Facebook and Twitter have been “censoring” content from conservatives. He claimed that those groups were acting as publishers, not platforms, when they removed content or otherwise altered what is posted.
Earlier this week, a tweet from Trump about mail-in voting was labeled as misleading by Twitter. The label linked to a fact-check about the president’s claims. Trump promised the executive order in response to Twitter’s move.
Wyden argued that there is “nothing in [Section 230] about political neutrality.” He said that platforms could remove content under the policy.
“It does not say companies like Twitter are forced to carry misinformation about voting, especially from the president,” Wyden said, later adding, “Section 230 does not prevent internet companies from moderating offensive or false content. And it does not change the First Amendment of the Constitution.”
Without the protections of Section 230, social media platforms could be held liable for the content that is posted by all of their users. Such lawsuits would likely force platforms to restrict heavily the content that is posted across the internet.
