President of America, Donald Trump has signed an executive order removing some of the legal protections given to social media platforms.
The order gives regulators of the social media space the power to pursue legal actions against firms such as Facebook and Twitter.
The development comes after Twitter added a fact check to two of his tweets concerning claims about widespread mail-in voting fraud.
President Trump accused social media platforms of having “unchecked power” while signing the order.
The order sets out to clarify the Communications Decency Act, a US law that offers online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube legal protection in certain situations.
Under the old law, social networks were not generally held responsible for content posted by their users but can engage in “good-Samaritan blocking”, such as removing content that is obscene, harassing or violent.
The executive order points out that this legal immunity does not apply if a social network edits content posted by its users, and calls for legislation from Congress to “remove or change” section 230.
It also says “deceptive” blocking of posts, including removing a post for reasons other than those described in a website’s terms of service, should not be offered immunity.
