Trump Signs Executive Order to Prevent Big Tech Censorship
(Chaz Anon) On Wednesday the long awaited but somewhat anti-climatic House Judiciary Committee on antitrust invited four of the biggest tech titans— Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook, each of them testifying before Congress. There are some serious antitrust issues going on at Facebook, Google, Amazon and it’s pretty easy to place the blame on their CEOs.
Republican Representative from Ohio Jim Jordan asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai if they are configuring their platform to help Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
JORDAN: So here's the question I think is on so many Americans’ minds. They saw the list we read here earlier. All the things Google has done. Google is siding with the World Health Organization over anyone who disagrees with them, even though the World Health Organization obviously lied to America and shills for China. YouTube and Google is siding with them. We have the history of what Google has done and the history of 2016, where they obviously, according to one of your marketing executives, tried to help Clinton. And here we are 97 days before the election and we want to make sure it's not going to happen again. Can you assure us you're not going to tailor or configure your platform to help Joe Biden? And second, that you're not going to use your search engine to silence conservatives? Can you give us those two assurances today?
PICHAI: Congressman, on our search engine, conservatives have more access to information than ever before—
JORDAN: We appreciate that, that wasn't the question. Can you assure us you're not going to silence conservatives and assure us that you're not going to configure your features as you did for Clinton in '16, can you assure us you're not going to do the same thing for Joe Biden in 2020?
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says that during the presidential race, the company "won't do any work to politically tilt anything one way or the other" for the Trump or Biden campaigns https://t.co/83sKht0bRx pic.twitter.com/vgDbo4MIlP
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 29, 2020
Later that afternoon after the hearing, the Trump White House published their executive order that prevents social media giants from altering or editorializing free speech.
BREAKING: President Trump directs FCC to implement Executive Order Preventing Online Censorship to limit Section 230 https://t.co/u8VTIVtWXZ
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 29, 2020
On Monday, the Department of Commerce, as directed by President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship, filed a petition to clarify the scope of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The petition requests that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) clarify that Section 230 does not permit social media companies that alter or editorialize users’ speech to escape civil liability. The petition also requests that the FCC clarify when an online platform curates content in “good faith,” and requests transparency requirements on their moderation practices, similar to requirements imposed on broadband service providers under Title I of the Communications Act. President Trump will continue to fight back against unfair, un-American, and politically biased censorship of Americans online.
