Presidential DocumentExecutive Order 139252020-12030
Preventing Online Censorship
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Published
June 2, 2020
Signed
May 28, 2020
Issuing agencies
Executive Office of the President
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 85 Issue 106 (Tuesday, June 2, 2020)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 106 (Tuesday, June 2, 2020)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 34079-34083]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2020-12030]
[[Page 34077]]
Vol. 85
Tuesday,
No. 106
June 2, 2020
Part V
The President
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Executive Order 13925--Preventing Online Censorship
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 85 , No. 106 / Tuesday, June 2, 2020 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 34079]]
Executive Order 13925 of May 28, 2020
Preventing Online Censorship
By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. Free speech is the bedrock of
American democracy. Our Founding Fathers protected this
sacred right with the First Amendment to the
Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas
is the foundation for all of our rights as a free
people.
In a country that has long cherished the freedom of
expression, we cannot allow a limited number of online
platforms to hand pick the speech that Americans may
access and convey on the internet. This practice is
fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic. When
large, powerful social media companies censor opinions
with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous
power. They cease functioning as passive bulletin
boards, and ought to be viewed and treated as content
creators.
The growth of online platforms in recent years raises
important questions about applying the ideals of the
First Amendment to modern communications technology.
Today, many Americans follow the news, stay in touch
with friends and family, and share their views on
current events through social media and other online
platforms. As a result, these platforms function in
many ways as a 21st century equivalent of the public
square.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube wield
immense, if not unprecedented, power to shape the
interpretation of public events; to censor, delete, or
disappear information; and to control what people see
or do not see.
As President, I have made clear my commitment to free
and open debate on the internet. Such debate is just as
important online as it is in our universities, our town
halls, and our homes. It is essential to sustaining our
democracy.
Online platforms are engaging in selective censorship
that is harming our national discourse. Tens of
thousands of Americans have reported, among other
troubling behaviors, online platforms ``flagging''
content as inappropriate, even though it does not
violate any stated terms of service; making unannounced
and unexplained changes to company policies that have
the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints; and
deleting content and entire accounts with no warning,
no rationale, and no recourse.
Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning
label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly
reflects political bias. As has been reported, Twitter
seems never to have placed such a label on another
politician's tweet. As recently as last week,
Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead
his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian
Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets.
Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of so-called
``Site Integrity'' has flaunted his political bias in
his own tweets.
At the same time online platforms are invoking
inconsistent, irrational, and groundless justifications
to censor or otherwise restrict Americans' speech here
at home, several online platforms are profiting from
and promoting the aggression and disinformation spread
by foreign governments like China. One United States
company, for example, created a search engine for the
Chinese Communist Party that would have blacklisted
searches for ``human rights,'' hid data unfavorable to
the Chinese Communist Party,
[[Page 34080]]
and tracked users determined appropriate for
surveillance. It also established research partnerships
in China that provide direct benefits to the Chinese
military. Other companies have accepted advertisements
paid for by the Chinese government that spread false
information about China's mass imprisonment of
religious minorities, thereby enabling these abuses of
human rights. They have also amplified China's
propaganda abroad, including by allowing Chinese
government officials to use their platforms to spread
misinformation regarding the origins of the COVID-19
pandemic, and to undermine pro-democracy protests in
Hong Kong.
As a Nation, we must foster and protect diverse
viewpoints in today's digital communications
environment where all Americans can and should have a
voice. We must seek transparency and accountability
from online platforms, and encourage standards and
tools to protect and preserve the integrity and
openness of American discourse and freedom of
expression.
Sec. 2. Protections Against Online Censorship. (a) It
is the policy of the United States to foster clear
ground rules promoting free and open debate on the
internet. Prominent among the ground rules governing
that debate is the immunity from liability created by
section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act
(section 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.
In particular, subparagraph (c)(2) expressly addresses
protections from ``civil liability'' and specifies that
an interactive computer service provider may not be
made liable ``on account of'' its decision in ``good
faith'' to restrict access to content that it considers
to be ``obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively
violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable.'' It is
the policy of the United States to ensure that, to the
maximum extent permissible under the law, this
provision is not distorted to provide liability
protection for online platforms that--far from acting
in ``good faith'' to remove objectionable content--
instead engage in deceptive or pretextual actions
(often contrary to their stated terms of service) to
stifle viewpoints with which they disagree. Section 230
was not intended to allow a handful of companies to
grow into titans controlling vital avenues for our
national discourse under the guise of promoting open
forums for debate, and then to provide those behemoths
blanket immunity when they use their power to censor
content and silence viewpoints that they dislike. When
an interactive computer service provider removes or
restricts access to content and its actions do not meet
the criteria of subparagraph (c)(2)(A), it is engaged
in editorial conduct. It is the policy of the United
States that such a provider should properly lose the
limited liability shield of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) and
be exposed to liability like any traditional editor and
publisher that is not an online provider.
[[Page 34081]]
(b) To advance the policy described in subsection
(a) of this section, all executive departments and
agencies should ensure that their application of
section 230(c) properly reflects the narrow purpose of
the section and take all appropriate actions in this
regard. In addition, within 60 days of the date of this
order, the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary), in
consultation with the Attorney General, and acting
through the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA), shall file a petition for
rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) requesting that the FCC expeditiously propose
regulations to clarify:
(i) the interaction between subparagraphs (c)(1) and (c)(2) of section 230,
in particular to clarify and determine the circumstances under which a
provider of an interactive computer service that restricts access to
content in a manner not specifically protected by subparagraph (c)(2)(A)
may also not be able to claim protection under subparagraph (c)(1), which
merely states that a provider shall not be treated as a publisher or
speaker for making third-party content available and does not address the
provider's responsibility for its own editorial decisions;
(ii) the conditions under which an action restricting access to or
availability of material is not ``taken in good faith'' within the meaning
of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) of section 230, particularly whether actions can
be ``taken in good faith'' if they are:
(A) deceptive, pretextual, or inconsistent with a provider's terms of
service; or
(B) taken after failing to provide adequate notice, reasoned explanation,
or a meaningful opportunity to be heard; and
(iii) any other proposed regulations that the NTIA concludes may be
appropriate to advance the policy described in subsection (a) of this
section.
Sec. 3. Protecting Federal Taxpayer Dollars from
Financing Online Platforms That Restrict Free Speech.
(a) The head of each executive department and agency
(agency) shall review its agency's Federal spending on
advertising and marketing paid to online platforms.
Such review shall include the amount of money spent,
the online platforms that receive Federal dollars, and
the statutory authorities available to restrict their
receipt of advertising dollars.
(b) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the
head of each agency shall report its findings to the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
(c) The Department of Justice shall review the
viewpoint-based speech restrictions imposed by each
online platform identified in the report described in
subsection (b) of this section and assess whether any
online platforms are problematic vehicles for
government speech due to viewpoint discrimination,
deception to consumers, or other bad practices.
Sec. 4. Federal Review of Unfair or Deceptive Acts or
Practices. (a) It is the policy of the United States
that large online platforms, such as Twitter and
Facebook, as the critical means of promoting the free
flow of speech and ideas today, should not restrict
protected speech. The Supreme Court has noted that
social media sites, as the modern public square, ``can
provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available
to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard.''
Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1737
(2017). Communication through these channels has become
important for meaningful participation in American
democracy, including to petition elected leaders. These
sites are providing an important forum to the public
for others to engage in free expression and debate. Cf.
PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 85-89
(1980).
(b) In May of 2019, the White House launched a Tech
Bias Reporting tool to allow Americans to report
incidents of online censorship. In just weeks, the
White House received over 16,000 complaints of online
platforms censoring or otherwise taking action against
users based on their political
[[Page 34082]]
viewpoints. The White House will submit such complaints
received to the Department of Justice and the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC).
(c) The FTC shall consider taking action, as
appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to
prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or
affecting commerce, pursuant to section 45 of title 15,
United States Code. Such unfair or deceptive acts or
practice may include practices by entities covered by
section 230 that restrict speech in ways that do not
align with those entities' public representations about
those practices.
(d) For large online platforms that are vast arenas
for public debate, including the social media platform
Twitter, the FTC shall also, consistent with its legal
authority, consider whether complaints allege
violations of law that implicate the policies set forth
in section 4(a) of this order. The FTC shall consider
developing a report describing such complaints and
making the report publicly available, consistent with
applicable law.
Sec. 5. State Review of Unfair or Deceptive Acts or
Practices and Anti-Discrimination Laws. (a) The
Attorney General shall establish a working group
regarding the potential enforcement of State statutes
that prohibit online platforms from engaging in unfair
or deceptive acts or practices. The working group shall
also develop model legislation for consideration by
legislatures in States where existing statutes do not
protect Americans from such unfair and deceptive acts
and practices. The working group shall invite State
Attorneys General for discussion and consultation, as
appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
(b) Complaints described in section 4(b) of this
order will be shared with the working group, consistent
with applicable law. The working group shall also
collect publicly available information regarding the
following:
(i) increased scrutiny of users based on the other users they choose to
follow, or their interactions with other users;
(ii) algorithms to suppress content or users based on indications of
political alignment or viewpoint;
(iii) differential policies allowing for otherwise impermissible behavior,
when committed by accounts associated with the Chinese Communist Party or
other anti-democratic associations or governments;
(iv) reliance on third-party entities, including contractors, media
organizations, and individuals, with indicia of bias to review content; and
(v) acts that limit the ability of users with particular viewpoints to earn
money on the platform compared with other users similarly situated.
Sec. 6. Legislation. The Attorney General shall develop
a proposal for Federal legislation that would be useful
to promote the policy objectives of this order.
Sec. 7. Definition. For purposes of this order, the
term ``online platform'' means any website or
application that allows users to create and share
content or engage in social networking, or any general
search engine.
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order
shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or
the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and subject to the availability of
appropriations.
[[Page 34083]]
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against
the United States, its departments, agencies, or
entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any
other person.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
May 28, 2020.
[FR Doc. 2020-12030
Filed 6-1-20; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3295-F0-P
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</html>Indexed from Federal Register on June 2, 2020.
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