White House Vows to Fight 'Un-American' Online Censorship

The White House said the National Telecommunications & Information Administration petition to the FCC on clarifying how Sec. 230 does and does not apply to third party content online is an example of the President fighting back against "unfair, un-American, and politically biased censorship of Americans online." 

Related: Trump Slams Twitter over Trending 

The petition was in response to an executive order. 

In a statement Wednesday (July 29), press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the petition was meant to "clarify' that "Section 230 does not permit social media companies that alter or editorialize users’ speech to escape civil liability." 

It also wants the FCC to set up a regime for determining when third-party curation is done "in good faith" and impose transparency requirements like those on ISPs. 

The statement came the same day legislators are expected to grill the CEO's of top social media platforms in a Hill hearing on Big Tech and antitrust. 

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.