Watchdog Criticizes Anti-Free Speech Executive Order

Jonathan Ernst | REUTERS

For Immediate Release
May 28, 2020
Contact: Grace Morgan
(202-855-4380)

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), a nonpartisan non-profit taxpayer and consumer advocacy group, strongly criticized President Trump’s executive order seeking to regulate social media. The order would task the Federal Communications Commission (via instructions from the Commerce Department) with evaluating the purview of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability for comments made by users on the site. It would also give Federal Trade Commission (FTC) bureaucrats the authority to investigate complaints against tech platforms.

TPA Executive Director Tim Andrews noted, “Rather than increasing free speech and free expression across the digital domain, this executive order would stifle it. Despite the claims of this order’s proponents, having the federal government determine which user-generated content a private company should allow is a guaranteed path to censorship and the stifling of digital discourse.”

Andrews continued, “Section 230 provides valuable protections to a free, vibrant and open internet by ensuring that only people responsible for posting defamatory content are held liable for their actions. If an online platform, whether it be a social media company or a restaurant or tourism review site, stands to be sued for comments made by users, the inevitable result will be the imposition of significant limits on user behavior by platforms seeking to avoid waves of litigation by trial lawyers. This would result in a sharp increase in censorship by these platforms as they seek to fend off waves of trial lawyers. Any potentially problematic comments would simply be blocked, leading to the end of the vibrant and diverse internet ecosystem we know and love today.”

Andrews also noted that, “this executive order will disproportionately harm smaller companies and new online startups. Tech giants will have the resources to deal with many of the compliance costs this executive order will impose, but the next generation of companies will simply be unable to compete. Many of them will either never get off the ground, be run out of business, or be forced to move offshore. The result will be the United States ceding its technological advantage to other countries, with fewer jobs created, and a significant hit to tax revenue as a result”.

Andrews concluded: “While we recognize criticisms of individual policies and practices of private companies may be justified, a ‘solution’ such as this will only harm free speech across the internet and lead to censorship. The proposed order would run roughshod over the vibrancy that fuels the World Wide Web. We strongly urge the Administration to reconsider this reckless, short-sighted executive order.”

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