CDT Challenges Trump’s Social Media EO With First Amendment Lawsuit
President Donald Trump’s social media-related executive order violates the First Amendment by “chilling the constitutionally protected speech of online platforms and individuals,” the Center for Democracy & Technology argued in a lawsuit Tuesday (see 2005290058). CDT accused of the president…
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of trying to intimidate Twitter. The EO is “designed to deter social media services from fighting misinformation, voter suppression, and the stoking of violence on their platforms,” CEO Alexandra Givens said. She accused Trump of threatening retaliation and regulation and thereby influencing content moderation policies. The White House directed questions to DOJ, which didn’t comment. The lawsuit cites Trump’s “attack” on Twitter for exercising First Amendment rights to comment on the president’s statements, as well as a “willingness to use government authority to retaliate against those who criticize the government.” The order would circumvent Congress and purports to “empower multiple government agencies to pass judgment on companies’ content moderation practices,” CDT claimed. It “clouds the legal landscape in which the hosts of third-party content operate and puts them all on notice that content moderation decisions with which the government disagrees could produce penalties and retributive actions.”