Advertisement

Trump wants social media to be treated like traditional publishers: here's what that means

Donald Trump
Donald Trump

Donald Trump wants to change a law that protects social  media companies, after he became infuriated that Twitter added a fact-checking label to a claim he made about postal voting fraud.

Trump says that social media companies have a right-wing bias and that conservative voices are often unfairly silenced on the platform, something the companies deny.

Not only is he dangling the threat of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube's privileges as "platforms" rather than "publishers", he is also threatening to ban government agencies from spending on advertising on the services if they are found to have limited free speech.

What does this mean for the debate over whether social media firms are ‘publishers’?

Trump's executive order has resurfaced a long-held debate about whether social media companies should be treated as publishers.

Under Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, social media companies, unlike traditional publishers, are not held liable for what is posted on their services as they are considered “platforms” for user generated content.

That means if someone was to post a defamatory statement about Donald Trump on Twitter, the company would not be held liable.

Some argue that billion dollar companies should be responsible for wild claims made on their services. But others say stricter policing would greatly inhibit free speech, as the content is a reflection of its users.

Could this shoot Donald Trump in the foot?

A change to the law will stifle more speech online, not less. If platforms do become publishers, more content will be removed than ever before if tech giants fear lawsuits. This could drastically limit the free speech the president is claiming to protect.

What incentivised Jack Dorsey to take the step now?

Twitter has been caught in the crossfire of the free speech versus harmful content debate for years, largely because of its patchy policing of its own policies against hate and violence. It has been criticised for removing some threatening tweets, but retaining others, including one made by the president himself in 2018, in which he warned he would send "fire and fury" to Kim Jong-un.

In response, Jack Dorsey claimed that the tweets of a high profile user should not be deleted, regardless of whether they violate policy, as they were "newsworthy".

Instead, Twitter would find a workaround to label them, a labelling policy that it announced at the end of 2019. It is this new policy change that Mr Trump claims he was victimised by this week.

Why has Facebook gone the other way?

Facebook adds warnings to articles containing fake news but says politicians are exempt from its fact-checking policy.

In a blow to Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg said that Twitter was wrong to fact check Trump, saying that private companies should not serve as an “arbiter of truth”.

Politically, this is a good opportunity for Zuckerberg to curry favour with the president after years of attacks from the White House over the platform’s use of data, its involvement in Russian election interference.

What happens next?

Proving that companies are limiting free speech, which Trump says is grounds to revoke Section 230, will be incredibly difficult. However, he is able to ban federal agencies from spending advertising on social media platforms, which could prove problematic ahead of the 2020 election. It does not look like Twitter will be backed into a corner. A day after the executive order was signed, it hid another of Trump's tweets for inciting violence.