President
Donald Trump
signed an executive order Thursday targeting legal protections that keep people from suing
social media
websites. The move follows his anger at
over its decision this week to append fact-check labels to several of his tweets about mail-in voting, along with links to accurate information on the topic.
Much of the president’s order consists of complaints about social media companies and their efforts to flag or remove content deemed inappropriate. Here is an explanation of the legal issues surrounding the components of the order that would — or might — do something.
What protects social media companies?
A 1996 law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, essentially bars people from suing providers of an “interactive computer service” for libel if users post defamatory messages on their platforms.
It says intermediary website operators — a category ranging from social media giants like Twitter,
and YouTube to blogs that let readers post comments — will not be treated as the publisher or the speaker for making others’ posts available.
A related provision also protects the sites from lawsuits accusing them of wrongfully taking down content. It gives them immunity for “good faith” decisions to remove or restrict posts they deem “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.”
How does the executive order target this shield?
By putting forward a vision for