By Banning Trump And Mass Banning Conservatives Today, Twitter Can Now Be Considered As A Publisher And Should Lose Section 230 Protections According To Trump’s Executive Order On Preventing Online Censorship

OPINION

Twitter permanently banned Trump from the social media platform Friday, citing the risk that he would incite further violence. He had 88.6 million followers.

Back in October President Donald Trump tweeted “REPEAL SECTION 230!!!”

Trump allies and conservatives have cried censorship over Trump’s ban.

Late Friday, President Trump tweeted from the @POTUS Twitter account, accusing Twitter of silencing him and his supporters. All four tweets were then deleted.

Twitter also permanently suspended the @TeamTrump account for ban evasion, the company said late Friday.

Also, millions of mostly conservative accounts were removed.

By banning Trump and mass banning conservatives today, Twitter just LOST Section 230 protections.

By taking such action, they are now considered a Publisher according to Trump’s executive order on preventing online censorship.

From WhiteHouse.Gov:

 

230(c)). 47 U.S.C. 230(c). It is the policy of the United States that the scope of that immunity should be clarified: the immunity should not extend beyond its text and purpose to provide protection for those who purport to provide users a forum for free and open speech, but in reality use their power over a vital means of communication to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions stifling free and open debate by censoring certain viewpoints.

Section 230(c) was designed to address early court decisions holding that, if an online platform restricted access to some content posted by others, it would thereby become a “publisher” of all the content posted on its site for purposes of torts such as defamation. As the title of section 230(c) makes clear, the provision provides limited liability “protection” to a provider of an interactive computer service (such as an online platform) that engages in “‘Good Samaritan’ blocking” of harmful content. In particular, the Congress sought to provide protections for online platforms that attempted to protect minors from harmful content and intended to ensure that such providers would not be discouraged from taking down harmful material. The provision was also intended to further the express vision of the Congress that the internet is a “forum for a true diversity of political discourse.” 47 U.S.C. 230(a)(3). The limited protections provided by the statute should be construed with these purposes in mind.

Twitter’s stock is tanking hard and if they lose section 230 protection they could get sued by everyone.

Twitter officially is not targeting conservatives according to their statement:

Even do American patriots on Twitter claim otherwise!

Section 230 was developed in response to a pair of lawsuits against Internet service providers (ISPs) in the early 1990s that had different interpretations of whether the service providers should be treated as publishers or distributors of content created by its users. After the passage of the Telecommunications Act, the CDA was challenged in courts and ruled by the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) to be unconstitutional, though Section 230 was determined to be severable from the rest of the legislation and remained in place. Since then, several legal challenges have validated the constitutionality of Section 230.