Trump’s FTC is looking for censorship of technology platforms

Federal Committee on Trade declared On Thursday, it will start a public request for “censorship of technology platforms” by asking for comments from people who believe they were demo -nevertised, banned or otherwise censored because of their speech or belongings.

“Technical companies should not harass their users,” FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson says in a statement. “This investigation will help FTC better understand how these companies may have broken the law by silencing and intimidating Americans for talking to their mind.”

Ftc’s request For public comment, it does not specify which laws FTC believes that platforms can break.

However, the regulator claims that these policies can sometimes make online creators lose access to their accounts without a process of appeal-they can be considered anti-competitive.

The creators have long enchanted their opaque relations with large technology platforms. Starting companies even appeared to provide creators insurance to protect themselves from account hacks, which can lead to income losses. But calling the FTC of content creators can be distraction as this message comes at a time when social media leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk loose restrictions on hate speech and calling into question relationship between content moderation and first repair.

Katie Gelis, a lawyer with experience in technology and freedom of speech, told TechCrunch that this investigation seems to be wrongly interpreting the competence of the first amendment.

Although the first amendment limits the government to interfere with people’s speech, it does not restrict private participants, like most online technology platforms.

“In most cases, Internet platforms are private participants who have their own rights for the first correction to moderate their sites as they would choose,” said Gelis. “If something else is this investigation from FTC, which in itself is a state participant, it threatens to break the first amendment, striving to interfere with the editorial judgment that Internet platforms have the right to have.”

The frequently cited Section 230 of the Law on Communication Outputs prevents online platforms from being liable for illegal content published by individuals. In recent years, the Supreme Court heard cases challenge The legislation, written in 1996, before social media existed as it is today. Still, the court maintained Section 230 after many legal challenges.

Although Zuckerberg and Musk liked the first amendment as loosen Moderation of the content and facts to verify the facts, SNAP Executive Director Evan Spiegel says that his peers are misunderstood the first amendment.

“Many platforms generally say, you know, we support the first repair, so each of our platform must be able to say anything, but this is something wrong that makes the first fix,” says Spiegel in recent Interview with YouTubers Colin and SamirS “In fact, the platform can choose any guidance on content or policies it wants according to the first amendment. And so I think there was a little misconception most, probably because people do not want to moderate content, because when they do, commitment decreases. “

President Trump signed on Wednesday Enforcement order This makes independent regulators, such as the SEC and FTC responsible to the White House, which can affect this investigation. But experts remain skeptical about the constitutionality of the Trump decree.