
Trump to sign executive order on social media amid Twitter furor - tomg
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/trump-executive-order-social-media-twitter-285891
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SCAQTony
Despite longstanding illegalities of trying to bully social networks, Trump's
executive order to kill Twitter's fact-checking will probably be waged through
the FCC.

I suspect he'll grant new draconian powers with NO congressional approval
whatsoever. "His" FCC will comply, WTF lawsuits will be filed, Twitter shuts
up, and he amps up his mail-in ballot propaganda!

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tacitusarc
My read of the article is that the idea is to remove protections granted by
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from social media companies if
they engage in "editorializing" user content.

If that really is the case, to pretend that this is straightforward feels
somewhat disingenuous. Surely there is a boundary somewhere at which a media
platform is no longer simply a provider of an interactive computer service--
though I won't pretend to know where it is.

In my view, the problem with Twitter's action isn't that they engaged in a
form of editorializing, it's that (as far as I can tell) they have no explicit
policy on how and when they apply the fact-check label. Absent such a policy,
it is impossible (ok, maybe just very difficult) to gauge what level of
reporting bias is present. If such a policy existed, one could imagine
processing a data set matching the policy to determine how closely their
actions align with the policy. Absent such a policy, it become a he-said she
said argument about bias-- the right will contend Twitter applies the label to
them more than the left, and the left will counter that the right lies more
and that's why.

