If you keep tabs on Donald Trump at all, and it’s hard not to in some way or another these days, you know that there’s little more he can’t stand than to be ridiculed — especially on his beloved internet.
He has a tendency to bitch almost constantly about the bias he’s subjected to on platforms like Twitter or Facebook. But God knows he’s certainly not about to boycott them. Instead, he prefers to abuse his power as president of this country and draft executive orders that consist of nothing more than thinly-veiled (and I do mean thinly) censorship in an attempt to ensure that no one can say anything but nice things about him.
Now, Trump’s Executive Order draft has been leaked and experts are issuing grave warnings to Americans — “In practice, this executive order would mean that whichever political party is in power could dictate what speech is allowed on the Internet.”
Civil liberties groups are advising citizens that should Trump’s order, dubbed the “Censor The Internet” executive order by critics, go into effect Americans will be facing serious threats to their online freedoms and First Amendment rights as federal agencies will essentially have the power to handpick and choose what is acceptable and what is not in terms of content on the internet.
The White House is about to introduce a “Censor the Internet” executive order
It would weaken CDA 230, the basic law that allows essentially all free expression online
Whether you’re Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Socialist this should terrify youhttps://t.co/mQCoL86ifA
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) August 11, 2019
The new rule “calls for the FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms. Although still in its early stages and subject to change, the Trump administration’s draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when it investigates or files lawsuits against misbehaving companies,” according to CNN, who obtained a copy of the leaked draft.
CNN continued that if put into effect, “the order would reflect a significant escalation by President Trump in his frequent attacks against social media companies over an alleged but unproven systemic bias against conservatives by technology platforms. And it could lead to a significant reinterpretation of a law that, its authors have insisted, was meant to give tech companies broad freedom to handle content as they see fit.”
Of course, these leaked drafts raised alarms bells for a plethora of free speech and online advocacy groups:
The ██████ White House just ██████ leaked a draft executive order ██████ that would ██████ give the government the power ██████ to censor the Internet. █████████ We have to stop it before it’s ██████. https://t.co/mQCoL86ifA
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) August 11, 2019
Deputy director of Fight for the Future, Evan Greer tweeted:
It’s hard to put into words how mind bogglingly absurd this executive order is. In the name of defending free speech it would allow mass government censorship of online content. In practice, it means whichever party is in power can decide what speech is allowed on the internet. https://t.co/YHNOAuZ4wO
— Evan Greer (@evan_greer) August 9, 2019
Fight for the Future also released an action alert the detailing the outright issues with Trump’s “unconstitutional” order.
Donald doesn’t just love Kim Jong Un. Evidently, he wants to be just like him.
Featured image via DC Tribune GalleryÂ
Like what you see here? Join the discussion on Facebook over at Americans For Sanity!
