Trump's Executive Order: Twitter Also Fact-Checks China; Now, They Can't Do That in the U.S. Anymore
by Jamie P.United States President Donald Trump has signed the executive order meant to "defend the free speech" from social media on Thursday, May 28. Upon his signing, reports also notice another government official from China that got his tweets about Coronavirus, labeled with "get the facts about COVID-19."
Trump signs E.O.
Trump's Executive Order: Twitter Also Fact-Checks China; Now, They Can't Do That in the U.S. Anymore
Early Thursday, May 28, Tech Times reported that several reporters from the White House had an insight into a possible executive order that will be signed by the President, later that day. The said E.O. is now finally signed by Trump.
"We're here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers," Trump said before signing the document.
The new directive changes the legal rights of every social media platform in the U.S. Back then, there was a law called Section 230 that was a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. This law serves as the main framework of every social media platform. Washington Post said that this law states that any social media companies are not considered as the publishers on each of the posts being written by their users.
This means that if you wanted to sue someone on writing hateful stuff on Facebook, the social media platform cannot be held legally for the post-- as they are not considered as the publisher or editor. But they can still remove content that is considered obscene, harassing, or violent.
However, this right was said to be overused by tech giants in the online world.
Trump, for one, accuses social media of having "unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences."
The practice is un-American, says POTUS
Trump's Executive Order: Twitter Also Fact-Checks China; Now, They Can't Do That in the U.S. Anymore
Trump called social media's actions as very un-American.
"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 on the internet," the 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."
Chinese official also gets fact-checked by Twitter
Since the issue of fact-checking by Twitter gets controversial, another government official-- now from China-- has recently been fact-checked online.
Not just Trump, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Lijian Zhao was also fact-checked on his several tweets about U.S. involvement in originating the Coronavirus.
All the tweets were now labeled with "get the facts about COVID-19" that shows tweets were not based on facts.