US President Joe Biden has officially canceled an executive order released by former President Donald Trump that had directed regulators to limit liability protections for social media companies.
The White House published an order by Mr. Biden revoking several of Mr. Trump’s executive orders. The Center for Democracy and Technology, which had sued to block Mr. Trump’s May 2020 order arguing that it “was an attempt to use threats of retaliation to coerce social media companies into allowing disinformation and hateful speech to go unchecked.”
Mr.Trump unsuccessfully demanded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set new rules to limit protections for social media firms under the 1996 Communications Decency Act. It protects the companies from liability for content posted by their users and allows them to remove lawful but objectionable posts.
Mr. Trump, who made his anger with social media companies a campaign theme, issued his order after Twitter tagged his tweets about unsubstantiated claims of mail-in voter fraud with a warning to readers.
Earlier this year, in a testimony prepared for a joint hearing before two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees, Facebook’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said, “platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection, that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Biden’s decision. Twitter declined to comment but referred to its initial statement about Mr. Trump’s order, which called it “reactionary and politicized.”
