Donald Trump to sign executive order on social media on Thursday
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Following this threat by Trump, shares of Facebook and Twitter saw a steep decline on Wednesday.
After US President Donald Trump ordered to shut down websites that he feels stifle conservative voices, White House has said Donald Trump will sign an executive order on social media companies on Thursday.
No other details were provided by the White House officials. It is still unclear as to how will the President follow on the threat of shutting down private social media giants.
Trump was upset as Twitter, for the first time, tagged his tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact check the posts. This warning upset Trump to a limit that he threatened the private companies.
On a similar issue, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by a conservative group and right-wing YouTube personality against Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple accusing them of conspiring to suppress conservative political views.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, feels that censoring social media platforms is not the right reflex for a government which is constantly worried about censorship.
Following this threat by Trump, shares of Facebook and Twitter saw a steep decline on Wednesday.
General Counsel Sean Edgett on Wednesday said, "We have a group and committee of folks who take a look at these things and make decisions on what`s getting a lot of visibility and traction."
The issue of censorship has been a topic of debate in the White House for few years now, as the President feels "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."
Republican and Democratic lawmakers, along with the U.S. Justice Department, have been considering changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law largely exempting online platforms from legal liability for the material their users post.
(With inputs from Reuters)