Trump Advances Bid to Weaken Shield for Twitter, Facebook
- Commerce Department asks FCC for rules diluting protections
- Request comes ahead of hearing featuring Google, Apple, Amazon
Donald Trump
Photographer: Chris Kleponis/Polaris/Bloomberg
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The Trump administration pressed its offensive against online companies it accuses of censoring conservatives, asking regulators to dilute a decades-old law that social media giants such as Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Google say is crucial to them.
The Commerce Department on Monday asked the Federal Communications Commission to write a regulation weakening protections laid out in Section 230, language in a 1996 law that protects online companies from legal liability for users’ posts, and for decisions to remove material.