In 2020, President Trump issued an Executive Order targeting online services that fact-checked him, which complicated a concurrent DOJ initiative to amend Section 230. This law safeguards online speech and limits liability for user content. FOIA documents reveal confusion among DOJ officials, who delayed revealing their proposed amendments due to the political tension surrounding Trump's order, which was later rescinded by President Biden. The proposed changes aimed to allow more legal actions against online platforms regarding user-generated content, fundamentally altering the protections provided by Section 230.
The DOJ's proposal would have significantly narrowed Section 230's protections, allowing federal civil suits against online services that learned users' content broke the law.
Trump's executive order in 2020 aimed to retaliate against platforms fact-checking him, complicating the DOJ’s own efforts to regulate those same online services.
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