The Trump administration is drafting an executive order to ban “anti-conservative bias†on social media, according to Politico. The report quotes three anonymous sources, including one White House official, saying that the plan is still nebulous and in its early stages. It supposedly “deals with other topics besides tech bias,†though it’s not clear what those are. But it’s a sign that Trump wants concrete action on a subject he’s been complaining about for years â€" and a move that might conflict with Trump’s recent request for more aggressive policing of potential violence on social media.
Trump said last month that the White House would “explore all legislative and regulatory solutions to protect free speech and the free speech of all Americans.†The official, however, put it in more clearly partisan terms: “If the internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is liberal cesspools of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in the system.†Trump and others have complained when social media platforms have banned or limited conservative accounts, although this sometimes includes the accounts of unabashed white supremacists, and we don’t know if conservative accounts get suspended disproportionately.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) already introduced a bill that would strip companies of key legal protections unless the Federal Trade Commission declared them politically “neutral.†(This is probably unconstitutional.) Even leaving aside constitutional questions, an executive order couldn’t go as far as that bill. Politico suggests it might look like an earlier order demanding free speech on college campuses, which was essentially redundant. The White House declined to comment on the record to The Verge.
But if the Trump administration is trying to spook social media platforms out of moderating conservatives, it’s putting them in a difficult position â€" because after a pair of mass shootings this weekend, Trump also said social media companies should “develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike.â€
One shooting was apparently an act of far-right terrorism, based on an anti-immigrant screed posted online. There was a fine line between its rhetoric and the views of major conservative figures like Tucker Carlson or Trump himself. Preemptively flagging the shooter â€" or one of several far-right killers before him â€" could have looked like egregious anti-conservative bias. And since predictive AI has sky-high error rates, it would probably catch a lot of non-violent conservative accounts (alongside those of non-conservatives) purely by accident. That’s already a recipe for a PR disaster, and it gets even dicier if Trump adds new legal punishments.
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Trump said last month that the White House would “explore all legislative and regulatory solutions to protect free speech and the free speech of all Americans.†The official, however, put it in more clearly partisan terms: “If the internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is liberal cesspools of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in the system.†Trump and others have complained when social media platforms have banned or limited conservative accounts, although this sometimes includes the accounts of unabashed white supremacists, and we don’t know if conservative accounts get suspended disproportionately.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) already introduced a bill that would strip companies of key legal protections unless the Federal Trade Commission declared them politically “neutral.†(This is probably unconstitutional.) Even leaving aside constitutional questions, an executive order couldn’t go as far as that bill. Politico suggests it might look like an earlier order demanding free speech on college campuses, which was essentially redundant. The White House declined to comment on the record to The Verge.
But if the Trump administration is trying to spook social media platforms out of moderating conservatives, it’s putting them in a difficult position â€" because after a pair of mass shootings this weekend, Trump also said social media companies should “develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike.â€
One shooting was apparently an act of far-right terrorism, based on an anti-immigrant screed posted online. There was a fine line between its rhetoric and the views of major conservative figures like Tucker Carlson or Trump himself. Preemptively flagging the shooter â€" or one of several far-right killers before him â€" could have looked like egregious anti-conservative bias. And since predictive AI has sky-high error rates, it would probably catch a lot of non-violent conservative accounts (alongside those of non-conservatives) purely by accident. That’s already a recipe for a PR disaster, and it gets even dicier if Trump adds new legal punishments.
https://adstoppipro.com/blog/the-white-house-is-drafting-an-order-to-stop-social-media-bias
More blog here
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