Copy of what i will be signing in a few minutes, and you will see exactly what were doing. Theyve had unchecked power to sensor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences. Theres no precedent in American History for so small a number of corporations to control so large a sphere of human interaction. And that includes individual people controlling vast amounts of territory, and we cant allow that to happen, especially when they go about doing what theyre doing, because they are doing things incorrectly. They have points of view, and if we go by that, it is actually amazing that there was a success in 2016, but we cant let this continue to happen. Its very very unfair, and you look at the statistics, and you look at what is going on, and i think everybody would very much agree with that. Including democrats, by the way, i saw quite a few democrats are saying its about time something is done. Lets see if they keep that decision after they hear we agree with them. The choices that twitter makes, when it chooses to suppress, edit, blacklist, shadow, ban or editorial decisions. Pure and simple, they are editorial decisions. In those moments twitter ceases to be a neutral public platform and becomes an editor with a viewpoint, and i think we can say that about others also. Whether youre looking at google, whether youre looking at facebook and perhaps others. One egregious example is when they try to silence views that they disagree with by selectively applying a fact check, fact check. What they choose to fact check and what they choose to ignore or even promote is nothing more than a political Activism Group or a political activism, and its inappropriate. You look at whats happened. You look at where they are going, where they are coming from. I think you all see it yourselves. The censorship and bias is a threat to freedom itself. Imagine if your phone company silenced or edited your conversations, social Media Companies are vastly more power and more reach than any phone company in the united states, more reach actually than your newspapers, by far, more reach than a lot of your traditional forms of communication. Therefore, today im signing executive order to protect and uphold the free speech and rights of the American People. Currently social media giants like twitter receive an unprecedented liability shield, based on the theory that they are a neutral platformer which they are not, not an editor with a viewpoint. My executive order calls new regulations under section 230 of the Communications Decency act to make it that social Media Companies that engage in censoring or any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield. Thats a big deal. They have a shield. They can do what they want. They have a shield. They are not going to have that shield. My executive order further instructs the federal trade commission, ftc to prohibit social Media Companies from engaging in any deceptive acts or practices affecting commerce. This authority resides in section 5 of the federal trade commission act. I think you know it pretty well. Most of you know it very well. I would think you know it quite well; right . Additionally, im directing the attorney general to work cooperatively with the states. Hes going to be working very much and very closely in cooperation with the states to enforce their against such deceptive business practices. The states have broad and powerful authority to regulate in this arena. They will be doing it also. We encourage them to do it. If they see exactly as weve been seeing, what they are doing is tantamount to monopoly, you can say. It is tantamount to taking over the airwaves. Cant let it happen. Otherwise were not going to have a democracy. Were not going to have anything to do with a republic. Finally im directing my administration to develop policies and procedures to ensure taxpayer dollars are not going in any social Media Company that repress free speech. The government spends billions of dollars on giving them money. Theyre rich enough. So were going to be doing none of it or very little of it. As president , i will not allow the American People to be bullied by these giant corporations. Many people have wanted this to be done by president s for a long time. And now were doing it. Im sure we will be going for legislation in addition to this, and the legislation will start immediately. I will tell you, i have been called by democrats that want to do this, and so i think you could possibly have a bipartisan situation, but were fed up with it. And its unfair, and its been very unfair. We will see what happens. Any questions . Mr. President , given your concern with twitter, have you given any consideration to deleting your account, just walking away from this platform youve been so critical of . You know, if you werent fake i would do that in a heart beat. Im not fake sir. If only the public could understand, they are reading the story, and th they think it i real and it is not real in so many cases. There are great journalists that i have respect for. But largely i find at least in a political sense theres so much fake news, it is disgraceful. I would do that in a heart beat if i had a fair if we had a fair press in this country, i would do that in a heart beat. Theres nothing i would rather do than get rid of my whole twitter account, but im able to get to i guess 186 Million People when you add up all the different accounts and add facebook and instagram, it is a lot of people, and thats more than the Media Companies have, frankly by a lot. And so if i get a story thats wrong, i can put a social media i dont usually use the word twitter, i say social media, but i put something out and the next day or the next hour or the next minute everybody is reading about it. So im able to refute fake news, and thats very important. I would like to ask the attorney general to say a couple of words. Hes very strongly behind it, backing it very powerfully, and again, were going to be doing this. Were also going through congress. As you mentioned, mr. President , one of the things that i found has the broadest bipartisan support these days is the feeling that this provision, section 230, has been stretched way beyond its original intention, and people feel that on both sides of the aisle. This was adopted 25 years ago to protect a fledgling industry, and its purpose was to allow websites that were serving as essentially Bulletin Boards for diverse Third Party Content coming on to say that youre not responsible for the content of that third party information. Also tried to encourage these companies to take down things like child pornography or Human Trafficking advertising and things, by saying if you act to remove this kind of objectionable material, you wont be liable for taking it down. Now its been completely stretched to allow what have become really behemoths who control a lot of the flow of information in our society to engage in censorship of that information and to act as editors and publishers of the material. So when they put on their own content, like fact check content on to other peoples content, and when they curate their collection and when they start censoring particular content, including in many cases at the direction of foreign governments, like communist china, they become publishers, and shouldnt be entitled to the same kind of shield that was set up earlier. This executive order is a very strong step toward addressing this problem. It sets up a rulemaking procedure that will eventually be under the fcc to try to get back to the original interpretation of understanding of section 230. It also empowers the attorney general to work with state attorneys general to come up with legislation that addresses this at the state level. Were preparing federal legislation which we will be sending over shortly for review at the office of management and budget. So this is an important step to get back to the original understanding. I know theres a bit of a bait and switch thats occurred in our society. These companies grew because they held themselves out as Public Forums, as free Public Forums where a variety of voices and Diverse Voices could come on and be heard. Thats how they grew. Thats how they attracted the eyeballs. Thats why people joined them. But now that they have become these very powerful networks of eyeballs that they have grown by holding themselves out as free Public Forums, they have now switched, and they are using that market power to force particular viewpoints. And thats wrong. And it has to be addressed not only through this executive order, but i think litigation Going Forward and further action on capitol hill. Thank you, mr. President. Mr. President do you have any questions for the attorney general . Yes, actually i do. Mr. Attorney general, not only have you been against section 230 and the president has been against section 230, the Vice President has said hes against section 230. Do you believe that the executive order that the president is about to sign in any way repeals or amends section 230 . No, it doesnt repeal section 230. And im not against section 230, if it is properly interpreted and properly applied, but its been stretched. And i dont know of anyone on capitol hill who doesnt agree that its been stretched beyond its original intention. I think this will help get back to the right balance. Mr. Attorney general, can you give us more details on the legislation both you and the president referred to . What do you want to do in that legislation were still reviewing a number of possibilities, and it would be premature for me to discuss. One of the things we may do is just remove or totally change 230. What i think we can say is were going to regulate it. It it is a provision. Were going to regulate it. You take a look at this as an example. On the mueller witch hunt, so we won. We were the right. You see whats happened. A total fraud. It was a total fraud. 76 to 1, okay, 76 to 1, you look at it. Do you think thats fair . Twitter classifies the term illegal alien as hate speech. Illegal alien. You look at what china i mean, just article after article. Heres one, this is our this is the arbiter, this guy is the arbiter of whats supposed to go on twitter. He thought that used cnn as a guide, which is fake news. He uses cnn as a guide. His name is [inaudible]. Hes the one that said mailin balloting, mail in, no fraud really . Theres cases all over the country. If we went to mailin balloting, our election all over the world would look as a total joke. It would be a total joke. Theres such fraud and abuse, and you know about harvesting, where they harvest the ballots, and they go and grab them and go to peoples houses and they say sign here. No. Doesnt work. Absentee ballot, you cant be there or youre sick and you go and you register and you do all sorts of things to get that ballot and theres good security measures, but when they send out like in california, millions and millions of ballots to anybody thats breathing, anybody in california thats breathing gets a ballot. But mr. President , thats not true. California is wait a minute. Im not finished. Heres your fan. Thats on twitter. And the amazing thing is hes wrong. No matter who it is, they will admit that hes wrong because theres tremendous controversy on mailin voting. I can say this, the Republican Party cannot let it happen. Go ahead. You know gavin newsom, Governor Newsom has not sent out ballots to everybody in california. They are only going to registered voters. How many are there . What your tweet said was not wrong it was not correct. It was wrong. Oh, really . When he sends out 28 million ballots and they are in all the mailboxes and kids go and raid the mailboxes and they hand them to people that are signing the ballots down at the end of the street, which is happening, they grab the ballots, you dont think that happens. Theres ballot harvesting we had seven elections for congress. They came and dropped a whole pile of ballots on the table. You dont think they rip them out of the mailboxes . All the time. You can read about it. Take a look. In some cases, they wont [inaudible] to a republican community, a conservative community, they dont happen to send the ballots to those communities. Theres no way of checking. No. You have to go and you have to vote. Voting is a great thing. Voting we would be the laughingstock of the world, and if you just use common sense, you know thats going to happen. But they raid the mailboxes. They can even print ballots. They get the same paper, the same machine. Nothing special. They get the same paper. The same machine. They print ballots. They would have to do a great job to catch them or your state authorities would have to. You have tremendous potential and you have tremendous fraud and abuse but you have potential for fraud and abuse. You had said in one of your tweets that you would consider shutting down and social Media Companies. Did you actually mean you would shut down i tell you, i have so much influence it seems over twitter because i have a vast number we have a number of platforms. Millions and millions of people. I think if twitter were not honorable, if you are going to a guy like this be your judge and jury, i think you shut it down, as far as im concerned, but i would have to go through a Legal Process how would you shut it down . I dont know, i would have to get the lawyers, go through a Legal Process. If it were able to be legally shut down, i would do it. I think i would be hurting it very badly if we didnt use it anymore. We have other sites we could use, i guess, or we would have to develop other sites. I think and im not just talking about twitter. Look at facebook. This woman who recently testified in congress, her hatred was so incredible towards the Republican Party and me that theres no way you can get a fair trial. This is not like it is supposed to be. It is not like it is supposed to be. Were going to see what happens. You know what . I guess it is going to be challenged in court. What isnt . But i think we will do very well. Go ahead. Mr. President , as to potential litigation, can you discuss the timing of that, and what is the remedy that you are going to be seeking . No, what i was referring to, there is litigation going on all the time on section 230 and its scope. We would look for appropriate vehicles to weigh in and file statement of interest. So you wouldnt be filing an individual not necessarily. Okay, thank you. Mr. President , i worry about the border on india and china. I just got back from india; right . I think they like me in india, certainly more than the media likes me. I like your Prime Minister a lot. Hes a great gentleman. Great gentleman. A big conflict with india and chi china, is that what you are talking about . Yes. A big conflict going on with india and china, two countries with 1. 4 billion people. Two countries are very powerful militaries. Indias not happy and probably chinas not happy. But i can tell you, i did speak to the Prime Minister. Hes not in a good mood about whats going on with china. Mr. President , have you spoken to are you finished . You said you wanted to meet with india and china on this issue . I would do that. If they thought it would help, if i were the mediator or the arbiter, i would do that. We will see. Go ahead. Have you spoken to family of george floyd yet . No, i havent. I feel very very badly. Very shocking sight. Bill and i were talking about it before. It is one of the reasons bill is here right now because as you know, were very much involved, and ive asked the attorney general, the fbi, and the attorney general to take a very strong look and to see what went on because that was a very, very bad thing that i saw. I saw it last night, and i didnt like it. Do you think those Police Officers should be prosecuted . Im not going to make any comments right now. I can tell you, i think what i saw was not good, was not good, very bad. Anybody else . Are you definitively staying in the u. S. China trade deal . We will be announcing what were doing tomorrow with respect to china. And we are not happy with china. We are not happy with whats happened. All over the world people are suffering. 186 countries, all over the world, they are suffering. Were not happy. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. Lets go. Come on. Lets go. Thank you, everybody. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events. From the president ial primaries through the impeachment process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Tonight a special edition of book tv with a focus on politics. Beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, author Larry Diamond discusss his book ill wins on the impact of covid19 on democracy around the world. Then the book no justice in the shadows. Later author and former National Security advisor to President Trump hr mcmaster talked about the Global Political and Economic Impact of covid19. Watch book tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan 2. Friday night starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, on cspan, watch class of 2020 commencement speeches, by dr. Deborah birx to her alma mater, a college in new york. Ohio governor to his Alma Mater Miami University in oxford, ohio. Speaker of the house pelosi to Smith College in north hampton, massachusetts. Democratic president ial candidate joe bidens delivering remarks to Columbia Law School graduates. And secretary of defense mark esper to the Naval Academy in annapolis. Watch class of 2020 commencement speeches, friday, at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan and online at cspan. Org or listen on the free