Four state attorneys general back Trump on social media regulation push
WASHINGTON, Sept 3- Four Republican state attorneys general led by Texas backed President Donald Trump’s push to narrow the ability of social media companies to remove objectionable content and require new transparency rules. Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and Missouri’s state attorneys general said in joint comments made public on Thursday that new rules are…
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Four Republican stateattorneys general led by Texas backed President Donald Trump’spush to narrow the ability of social media companies to removeobjectionable content and require new transparency rules.
Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and Missouri’s state attorneysgeneral said in joint comments made public on Thursday that newrules are needed. They argue social media platforms cannot betruly free “unless the participants understand the rules of theforum, and competition is able to provide alternatives whenspeech restrictions go too far.”
The attorneys general added that the “examples are legion ofonline platforms downplaying, editing, or even suppressingpolitical speech that bears no relationship to the traditionallyregulated categories of speech.”
On Wednesday, a group representing major internet companiesincluding Facebook Inc, Amazon.com Inc andAlphabet Inc’s Google urged the Federal CommunicationsCommission to reject a petition filed by the Trumpadministration, saying it was “misguided, lacks grounding inlaw, and poses serious public policy concerns.”FCC Chairman Ajit Pai dismissed calls from the two Democratson the agency’s five-member commission to reject the petitionwithout public comment. He has declined to comment on thepetition’s merits.
The Republican president directed the Commerce Department tofile the petition after Twitter Inc in May warnedreaders to fact-check his posts about unsubstantiated claims offraud in mail-in voting.
The Republican attorneys general cited Twitter’s decision toflag earlier Trump’s tweet.
“Twitter claimed the tweet was supported by ‘no evidence’despite the fact that many experts — including signatories tothis letter — can validate that claim,” they wrote.
Twitter on Thursday flagged two more tweets from Trump forviolating its rules on civic and election integrity by urgingvoters to cast ballots twice, via mail and in person.
Also on Thursday, Facebook said it would stop accepting newpolitical ads in the week before U.S. elections on Nov. 3 in aseries of moves it billed as its final plan for reducing risksof misinformation and election interference.
The petition asks the FCC to limit protections for socialmedia companies under Section 230, a provision of the 1996Communications Decency Act that shields social media companiesfrom liability for content posted by their users and allows themto remove lawful but objectionable posts.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
