President Trump traveled to Cape Canaveral for the historic
launching of two American astronauts from American soil in an America rocket
for the first time in nearly a decade. NASA
and SpaceX had to postpone the launch due to inclement weather.
On the return flight to Washington, White House Press
Secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced to reporters while on Air Force One that
the President plans to sign an executive order today aimed at social media companies
that stifle, even censor conservative voices on their platform.
The President and his supporters were outraged when Twitter
labeled a pair of his tweets about mail-in ballots with a fact-checking notice
for the first time on Tuesday. He
pledged then that “big action” would follow.
The EO seeks to target
the online industry's prized liability shield over user-generated content,
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The 1996 law broadly protects
websites from lawsuits over what their users post, and for taking good-faith
efforts to curb illicit material.
Sen. Josh Hawley
(Mo.) wrote in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on
Wednesday the company's “decision to editorialize regarding the content of
political speech raises questions about why Twitter should continue receiving
special status and special immunity from publisher liability under Section 230
of the Communications Decency Act. "And he later teased on social media
plans for a separate proposal to "end these special government
giveaways."
"If Twitter wants
to editorialize and comment on users’ posts, it should be divested of its
special status under federal law (Section 230) and forced to play by same rules
as all other publishers. Fair is fair," Hawley tweeted.
