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Lawsuit filed against Trump's executive order targeting social media firms

WION Web Team
Washington, United StatesUpdated: Jun 03, 2020, 09:12 AM IST
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FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump participates in a Cabinet meeting. Photograph:(Reuters)

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The suit, filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the executive order violates the First Amendment by curtailing and chilling the constitutionally protected speech of online platforms and individuals.

A lawsuit has been filed by a non-profit group against US President Donald Trump's executive order targetting social media firms Facebook and Twitter claiming the edict violates free-speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The suit, filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the executive order violates the First Amendment by curtailing and chilling the constitutionally protected speech of online platforms and individuals.

The Justice Department declined to comment, according to spokeswoman Brianna Herlihy.

Trump, irate over Twitter’s move to append fact-checking labels to his inaccurate tweets about mail-in voting, issued an executive order May 28 that seeks to rescind legal immunity social networks have under current US law if they ''censor'' speech.

The law, as it currently stands, lets internet companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter moderate content on their services as they see fit, while protecting them from lawsuits over content shared on them.

He had asked federal regulators to look at provisions, contained in Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, that insulate the companies from liability for content posted by users.