Trump Threatens To Veto Defense Spending Bill If Congress Doesn’t Repeal Legal Shield For Online Platforms

Topline

President Donald Trump, in a series of late-night tweets, threatened to veto a critical annual defense spending bill unless Congress agrees to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — which legally protects social platforms from being liable for users posts and allows them to moderate content in “good faith” — escalating his battle against social media platforms that he has accused of being biased against conservatives. 

Key Facts

Tangent

Trump has previously threatened to veto the NDAA over a provision that would require the Pentagon to rename 10 U.S. military installations that recognize Confederate generals, who fought to defend slavery.

Chief Critic

California based digital rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) condemned Trump’s threat, tweeting: “The White House wants to punish online services that host speech critical of the President by repealing a key online free speech law. This is a terrible idea for many reasons—including that it will be far more harmful to smaller sites and Internet users… it will only ensure that major platforms never face significant competition.”

Key Background

Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have called for changes to Section 230. While Republicans claim that the law enables platforms like Facebook and Twitter to curb conservative voices, Democrats argue that it allows platforms to shirk their responsibility of moderating hateful content and misinformation. Since his election loss, Trump has stepped up his attacks against the law and social media platforms as they have moved to add fact-check labels and warnings to his false claims about winning the election and large-scale voter fraud. Digital activists, however, have argued that Section 230 is a critical building block of the open internet and removing platform protections will lead to more censorship as companies are forced to act more aggressively to remove potentially libelous content posted by users.

Further Reading

Trump threatens to veto major defense bill unless Congress repeals Section 230, a legal shield for tech giants (Washington Post)

Trump threatens to veto defense bill over tech liability shield (The Hill)