Matt Gaetz Drafting Bill to Drop Big Tech’s Legal Immunity over One-Sided ‘Fact Checks’
by Sean Moran
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) will announce today that he is working with Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee to craft legislation that would strip social media giants of their Section 230 legal immunity if they fact check content on their platforms, according to a copy of his podcast which Breitbart News exclusively obtained.
On the Florida conservative’s podcast, Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz, he said that he is working on a bill that would prevent social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google from fact-checking content on their platforms. Gaetz’s announcement follows as Twitter decided to fact check President Donald Trump’s tweet on Tuesday.
Twitter tried to fact check the president over Trump’s tweet, claiming that mail-in ballot would lead to increased voter fraud.
….living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
After Twitter fact-checked Trump’s post, the president threatened to regulate or shut down social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter.
“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices,” Trump wrote on Wednesday. “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.”
Gaetz noted that social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook enjoy a special liability protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This immunity shields them from lawsuits if they were to remove and host content.