Trump could pressure agencies such as the FCC and the FTC to take action against social media companies. Platforms can pro-actively combat misinformation by amplifying legitimate information from reputable sources and putting posts from election officials at the top of people's feeds. The world took notice on May 26, when Twitter fact-checked President Donald Trump for the very first time. There is no secret about the fact that pre-existing health conditions can cause people to experience more severe problems from Covid-19. Trump and conservatives have long complained that tech platforms algorithmically censor right-wing voices. "We won't take action on broad, non-specific, or partisan statements about the integrity of elections. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office before signing an executive order related to regulating social media on May 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. Updated 1133 GMT (1933 HKT) July 15, 2020. When it comes to bolstering election machines and equipment, Congress has, "If we had a functioning government, with nonpartisan overseers of elections, there would be an election authority who would play this role," Persily said. ", Twitter fact-checks Trump's tweets for the first time, Trump's war against mail-in voting lacks Republican allies. Rigid rules like these give Trump an opening to spread his harmful messaging about fraudulent elections -- unencumbered -- even if his posts are filled with debunked allegations and rumors. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. CNN Politics, Washington D. C. 2.9M likes. But the agencies have, Privately, officials from the FCC and FTC have. The Trump administration could not go it alone. Twitter on Sunday took down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory -- a … At the very least, Twitter deserves credit for trying to hold public figures accountable. But Twitter says its hands are tied when those same lies are spread on a national scale, where they could influence millions of more voters. David Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor and former top FTC consumer protection official, said any government push to restrict how private platforms moderate their websites could raise First Amendment questions. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment on Trump's retweets.


Likewise, Social Media. ", Twitter has told CNN Business that it will. The distinction Twitter is drawing is that there's a difference between questioning the integrity of mail-in voting as a broad concept, versus suggesting that voting procedures in a particular state are fraudulent. As of 1:30 p.m. But antitrust probes tend to be highly technical and are usually limited to the impact of corporate conduct on competition in the marketplace. A new law that specifies how tech companies must police their platforms could raise questions about the law's constitutionality. There has been an ongoing push, led by the Justice Department and Republicans in Congress, to do just that. The strategy isn't only about fact-checking or hiding problematic posts, which is a game of catch-up because Trump has more than 83 million followers and tweets at least a dozen times each day. ", Over the past year, Twitter has diligently. As of Sunday at 4 p.m. Whoever cheated the most would win. But seven weeks later, and after a dozen similarly untruthful tweets from the President, that extraordinary step by Twitter looks more like a one-time aberration than the new normal. "If we're actually worried about people's belief in the sanctity of the American electoral process, those tweets don't look any different to me. Some executives, like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have sought to accommodate conservative voices by meeting with them privately, and even meeting with Trump himself. Trump, "Trump's style of posing these questions at the end of his tweets, that is borrowed from the National Enquirer, in the way they will often avoid defamation lawsuits by simply raising the question," Persily said. Trump's baseless tweets about voter fraud were also posted onto Facebook, which hasn't taken any action against any of his posts, which were subsequently shared by thousands. ET on Sunday, the now deleted "Mel Q" tweet Trump amplified had been retweeted more than 48,000 times. The most "obvious" course of action, according to Andrew Schwartzman of the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, would be for Trump to seek changes to the Communications Decency Act, which shields tech platforms from legal liability for a wide range of online content. Trump's threats on Wednesday are the clearest expression. Political news, campaign stories and Washington coverage from CNN Politics. CNN's Christian Pena and Donie O'Sullivan contributed to this story. Because the FCC was not informed, it suggests the draft order has not gone through the typical interagency review process, implying that the Justice Department and FTC may have been caught off-guard as well. ': CNN's Sara Sidner blasts Trump's Proud Boys denial, Biden: Trump's conduct was a national embarrassment, Van Jones describes the debate moment that upset him, Avlon: What Trump said sounds like a call for voter intimidation, Michael Cohen on Trump's taxes: The facts really do matter here, What it means if Donald Trump loses the election, Navarro: Trump paid Stormy Daniels more than he paid in taxes, See how voters in Georgia react to Trump tax news, NYT: WH pressured CDC to downplay risks of reopening schools, Could Trump go to jail over his taxes? He went on to accuse the tech industry of trying to interfere in the 2016 election, before repeating an unfounded claim about voter fraud stemming from mail-in ballots. The pending executive order was hastily conceived at the last minute, the person said. Before Donald Trump ever sought the Oval Office, he was preoccupied by its occupant President Barack Obama, publicly questioning his birthplace and privately describing him as … The FCC has so far resisted White House efforts to involve the agency in policing social media. The company concedes that this still allows some "false or untrue information" to flow freely on its platform.

Trump's Twitter outburst followed an unprecedented decision by the platform on Tuesday evening to apply a fact-checking label to Trump's content for the first time.

There is no way the platforms can win on this.". "This is just another example of Trump thinking that the Constitution makes him a king, but it doesn't," he said. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. As the nation reels from social, economic and health crises, President Donald Trump began his Wednesday with a Twitter spree defending himself, attacking his …
"I am sure that if I ran a randomized, controlled study and measured the impact of these tweets on public confidence in the legitimacy of the election, I can't imagine I would find a distinction between those posts," said professor Joshua Tucker, who is the co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University. It's difficult for the tech companies to draw the line between these three categories.".

"There are an infinite number of ways to cast doubt about mail-in balloting," said Stanford Law School professor Nathaniel Persily, an expert on how social media impacts democracy. He's expected to sign an executive order pertaining to social media Thursday, but it is still unclear what the substance of the order may contain. Changing the law would require building broad consensus in a deadlocked Congress. Even though hundreds of millions of people get information from their global platforms, they've tried to avoid deciding what is true and false. For example, the other 94% includes people whose death certificate listed both Covid-19 and obesity, both Covid-19 and diabetes, or both Covid-19 and heart disease -- among other conditions.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to "strongly regulate" or even shut down social media platforms after Twitter applied a fact-check to two of his tweets this week. He added that he "will not allow it to happen!

Twitter responded swiftly, saying that the viral posts contained "potentially misleading" information, and slapped a fact-check label on them. As the coronavirus pandemic swept through the country, Democratic and Republican election officials, On May 26, Trump took aim at the largest Democratic state, which announced it would send mail ballots to all registered voters: "The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one.". In a move that will likely embolden President Donald Trump's claims that social media companies are biased against him and his supporters, Twitter … Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to "strongly regulate" or even shut down social media platforms after Twitter applied a fact-check to two of his tweets this week. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Shortly after the labels were applied, Trump took to Twitter to claim the company "is interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election" and "stifling FREE SPEECH." Twitter has flagged a tweet from President Trump as containing "manipulated media" after the president tweeted a clip of a black toddler and a white toddler edited to include a CNN … The White House did not consult the Federal Communications Commission on the forthcoming executive order, according to a person briefed on the matter. "It's a legitimate concern about how much you want the platforms to be arbiters of truth about politics," said Tucker, the NYU professor. Optimism grows for emergency coronavirus vaccine use in 2020. Trump shared the false information with his 85 million-plus followers. "Some of them are clear voter suppression, some are disinformation, but some are predictions and opinions. More from CNN Politics on coronavirus polling.

Clean up your act, NOW!!!!". Meanwhile, major tech industry players remain under federal and state antitrust investigation. "We don't have that. This approach creates a strange dynamic. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Trump tweeted Wednesday. "We can't let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country," Trump tweeted. The label, which Twitter has designed to combat misinformation and unverified claims, linked to a curated page with links and summaries of articles describing how Trump's claims on mail-in ballots are unfounded. It's all part of the give-and-take of social media platforms patrolling political speech. Twitter repeatedly declined to take action, saying he didn't break the rules. A Twitter spokesperson told CNN that many of these posts are "currently not in violation of the Twitter Rules," even though they struck a similar tone to the tweets they sanctioned in May.

(CNN)Twitter on Sunday took down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory -- a post that President Donald Trump had retweeted earlier in the day. He. It was not immediately clear if the FTC had been consulted on the executive order teased this week. CNN's Jason Hoffman contributed to this report. The same problem is pervasive on Facebook, which became a breeding ground for misinformation in recent years, and which has taken fewer steps than Twitter despite commanding a much larger audience. Facebook and Twitter declined to comment Wednesday.

ET, Twitter had not removed a second tweet, also retweeted by the President on Sunday, that spread the same false claim. So, we leave it up to these for-profit, multibillion-dollar corporations to make these calls.