To be clear: the issue is not per se the fact that tech giants are deleting certain content, the problem is that they at the same time are claiming immunity from liability for criminal content posted by their users, by claiming to be a free and open platform, rather than a publisher.
However, legally, they cannot have it both ways. Either they permit anyone to post anything (with extremely narrow exceptions for clearly criminal content, as defined by federal law, not the platform’s own “community guidelines”), or they edit (as they are currently doing), in which case they are legally a publisher and legally responsible for the content posted on their platform.
In other words, if a company like Twitter continues to edit, censor, flag or delete content or accounts, based on the platform’s political preference, it cannot also claim immunity under federal law for the content it permits. So far, they have gotten away with doing both, contrary to what the law states.
On Thursday, President Trump now signed an executive order, clarifying the legal situation and instructing federal departments and agencies to draft guidelines to determine when a platform acts (and thus is to be treated as) a free and open forum, and when it acts as a publisher instead (and thus cannot claim immunity designated to free and open forums).
He also instructed federal agencies to look into how to classify these platforms – whether as publishers, or as free and open forums – given tens of thousands of complaints, filed by users all over the country, concerning the censorship performed by these companies.
As it stands right now, most of the big social media platforms will likely no longer get away with claiming immunity for content, given that most of them clearly chose to edit, flag and censor, thus acting as publishers. Thus, they will finally be held to the same standard as many smaller platforms have in the past.
This executive order promises to bring both justice and clarity, as it also articulates the standard for being treated as either a forum or a publisher. This way, a platform that actually chooses to act as a free and open forum (e.g. MeWe or Gab), rather than editing and filtering its content, will have more legal certainty as well.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/