Twitter fired back at President Donald Trump on Thursday night, just hours after the White House revealed a new executive order that institutes additional scrutiny on social networking sites and their policing of content, including false claims and political messaging.

On its own site, Twitter’s Public Policy account released a scathing critique of Trump’s policy response, which was a direct response to his being publicly flagged for posting false claims bout mail-in voting in California earlier in the week. During an Oval Office press briefing about the executive order, Trump said he might explore whether or not the federal government could shut down Twitter, a “shocking” threat that drew alarm from Fox News’ Neil Cavuto.

“This EO is a reactionary and politicized approach to a landmark law,” Twitter wrote. “#Section230 protects American innovation and freedom of expression, and it’s underpinned by democratic values. Attempts to unilaterally erode it threaten the future of online speech and Internet freedoms.”

This EO is a reactionary and politicized approach to a landmark law. #Section230 protects American innovation and freedom of expression, and it’s underpinned by democratic values. Attempts to unilaterally erode it threaten the future of online speech and Internet freedoms.

— Twitter Public Policy (@Policy) May 29, 2020

Earlier on Thursday, Twitter’s vice president of global communications revealed that the social media platform anticipated much of President Donald Trump’s reaction to having his tweets flagged as misinformation, including a possible move to revisit Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects Internet platforms from liability for content posted on their sites.

Twitter’s response came just four minutes after this post by Trump, which seemed to taunt the site by citing the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, of competitor Facebook effectively siding with Trump and opposing becoming a “arbiter of truth” about its site’s content.

.@Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is today criticizing Twitter. “We have a different policy than Twitter on this. I believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.” Did Twitter criticize Obama for his “you can keep your Dr.”?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2XDUib4