How Trump’s executive order targeting social media may affect you

Friday, May 29, 2020 - 09:31 in Psychology & Sociology

This addendum appeared on a Trump tweet early Friday morning. (Twitter/)This afternoon, President Trump signed an executive order to address what he sees as a bias against people with conservative politics by removing some legal protections afforded to social media platforms. The focus of the order falls clearly on Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which states that sites can moderate user content without taking on full responsibility as a publisher—which has long been a controversial statute. The issue is extremely complex, and it will play out at various levels of government in the coming months. Here are answers to some common questions about how this started, what’s happening, and what it might mean for social media users.Why is this executive order happening?On Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted some negative remarks about voting by mail. Members of Twitter’s third-party fact checking program reportedly flagged the tweets as potentially misleading...

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