The Executive Order on Platforms and Online Speech: Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center Responds

President Trump signed an executive order recently, threatening to revoke CDA 230 protections, which would expose social media companies to increased liability for content that is posted on their sites. This comes on the heels of Twitter, last week, fact-checking two misleading tweets from the president about mail-in voting. Critics of the executive order say the White House is overstepping its authority, and cannot limit the legal protections that social media companies currently hold under federal law. Resources: Annotated executive order: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j_ZU9OUkvA5teWSC2_iQx61eB1rzbTjN55AqzmIP1c0/edit# Jeff Kosseff’s book, The 26 Words that Made the Internet: https://bookshop.org/books/the-twenty-six-words-that-created-the-internet/9781501714412 Eric Goldman's Blog: https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/05/trumps-preventing-online-censorship-executive-order-is-pro-censorship-political-theater.htm A list of principles on potential CDA 230 change endorsed by a number of orgs and academics: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2992&context=historical Overview from Daphne Keller on platform regulation: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/who-do-you-sue-state-and-platform-hybrid-power-over-online-speech_0.pdf