Friday, June 05, 2020

Trump’s social media order violates free speech, claims lawsuit

In one of the first lawsuits challenging the executive order on preventing online censorship signed by US President Donald Trump, a digital rights group has claimed that the order violates the rights to free speech of all online platforms and individuals.

The lawsuit was filed by nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday.

CDT said that the executive order which was issued after Twitter added a fact-checking label to one of Trump's tweets about mail-in voting was "plainly retaliatory".

The May 28 executive order "violates the first Amendment in two fundamental respects: Frist the order is plainly retaliatory: it attacks a private company, Twitter, for exercising its First Amendment right to comment on the President's statements," said the lawsuit.

"Second, and more fundamentally, the Order seeks to curtail and chill the constitutionally protected speech of all online platforms and individuals...," it added.

Trump's executive order seeks to blunt Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act which generally protects internet companies from legal liability for user comments.

Section 230 states that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

SOURCE 

10 comments:

Stan B said...

The Lawsuit proceeds from the idea that being declared a platform is some sort of "right." It isn't. It derives from the behavior of the entity, not simply from their own self-declaratory status.

Twitter, by altering the tweets of individuals, has become an EDITOR, and therefor a PUBLISHER.

Sorry, they are going to lose.

ScienceABC123 said...

When a social media company "adds" to someone's post either by comment or disclaimer they are injecting themselves into the conversation. At that point they are no longer just a platform, and have taken on the role of a participant (i.e. a publisher/editor/commentator).

Anonymous said...

Try explaining that to an Obama appointed judge.

Anonymous said...

When the social media companies decide to regulate speech they should expect to be regulated.

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Anonymous said...

The law is clear and this Executive Order seeks an end around that law instead of going through the Congress for a change in the law.

Specifially, we are talking about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

Here's the relevant portion:

(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liability
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
(emphasis not in original)

By law, if an ISP or site restricts of edits content, they cannot be held liable under the law. If a site decides not to restrict or edit content, (other than illegal activities) they cannot be held responsible.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:43 - Good find but in 1996 part of that law was struck down because it would infringe on the Free Speech rights of adults.

Given that this is directly a Political Speech and Free Speech issue it would be consistent to say that Section 230 protections would also fall as denying free speech.

Essentially, it may be the law but it's "bad law" and won't hold up when challenged and this is a challenge to it.

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:03,

Given that this is directly a Political Speech and Free Speech issue it would be consistent to say that Section 230 protections would also fall as denying free speech.

Except for the fact that the First Amendment and "free speech" does not apply to private companies. There is no law that requires a company to publish anything of this type. In fact, a Supreme Court case rules that a newspaper (Pittsburgh Gazette?) did not have to publish a opinion contrary to the editorial board even though the claimant said the refusal to publish was a denial of his First Amendment rights.

In fact, the SCOTUS has ruled that governments need not publish ideas that are contrary to those ideas and opinions they are putting forth. That case arose out of a government newsletter promoting an idea in the community and a person with a different opinion wanted the newsletter to publish a rebuttal. The Court said "no."

There is no right to demand that anyone use the facilities or product of another company. If people think Facebook or Twitter is wrong in their policies, go ahead and start your own social media site.

This is a good law unless you believe that the government should tell people what they have to say and what they cannot say.


Anonymous said...


Except for the fact that the First Amendment and "free speech" does not apply to private companies.

The previous ruling on this AND the court ruling forcing Trump to allow people to follow him on Twitter have already shown that is not true. The courts have already declared such as public forums which is in line with what the private companies are trying to provide as electronic services so, yes the First Amendment does apply and has already been used setting precedent.

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:01,

The previous ruling on this AND the court ruling forcing Trump to allow people to follow him on Twitter have already shown that is not true.

There is no previous ruling on forcing companies to open up their platforms or modes of expression.

I presume you are talking about the case of ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION et al, in which the Court decided that government requirements for censorship was legal, but in the case of the Child Online Protection Act, (COPA) was not narrowly tailored to meet a legitimate governmental aim.

That means the Court struck at the heart of government restrictions on speech and not private companies deciding what to publish or not publish themselves.

Here you are trying to argue that the government can force private companies to publish third party statements. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly against such so called "compelled speech" (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette ) and most recently Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston is contrary to the First Amendment.

As for the Trump case, the Court did not say that Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., must make Trump's official accounts public, but that Trump could not censor them and those who saw them.

The Court ruled that the Trump account was in fact a government account and therefore a First Amendment violation for Trump to censor what some people saw and did not see. The Court ruling applied to Trump as a public servant. However, the Court made it clear that Trump, or any official could have accounts as a private individual and as a private individual could not be forced to open up that account to anyone. In short, the government and actors cannot censor their message, but private actors - both companies and individuals - can.

Once again, Section 230 is not a violation of the First Amendment.