Trump kept his promise and signed a decree depriving social networks and other companies like Google of the protection they enjoy.
Thus, on Thursday, May 28, 2020, reacting to the new functionality added by Twitter which makes it possible to report tweets, in particular on the part of political figures, as untruths. Twitter, indeed marked last Tuesday two tweets published by the US President concerning the reliability of the postal vote. Twitter considered the two Trump tweets to be misleading.
The President of the United States did not mince his words and threatened to attack and shut down social media companies. Without delay, he signed an executive order making it possible to conduct investigations by federal agents with these companies and to delve into their files.
Note that companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, are, according to the 1996 law including section 230 (c) of the Communications Decency Act, a law of 1996, not responsible for messages published by users of their services.
Donald Trump who has more than 80 million followers on his Twitter account is also the biggest user of social networks among the presidents of the United States to the point of announcing important decisions like the dismissal of some of his collaborators by simple tweets. Despite everything, that did not stop him from revolting against social media companies including Twitter by accusing them of manipulating communication between individuals and of allegedly violating expression freedom.
By doing this Trump adds the social network companies to the list of his enemies of the media scene. Nevertheless, the decision taken will certainly be the subject of a legal battle and political debate, notably with the Congress. Indeed, as usual, the Democrats displayed their support on Twitter and castigated the President’s actions.
On the other hand, Twitter has not shown itself to be intimidated Donald Trump’s actions and have decided to continue reporting the Tweets of politicians considered to be deceptive, including those published today by the American President. Thus, Twitter had to hide a tweet from Trump commenting on the Minneapolis clashes after the death of a 46-year-old man called George Floyd on May 25 following his arrest by the police. The said tweet is judged by the platform as a “glorification of violence”.
Admittedly, the last two years were not the best for several companies in the silicon valley, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Apple … and especially with President Trump with whom relations have been strained for a moment. While these groups need the support of the American administration around the world, they must deal with the effects of Trump’s decisions like those relative to international trade.
