Editor's Revenge

Big Brother is ungood.

Donald Trump is a liar

   Both phrases would be deleted from social media postings under guidelines in the executive order signed by the president.
  In it, he said "a small handful of social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the United States."
   Note the mismatch of subject-verb agreement.
   He said the companies "have unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences."
   Reality: If in fact they have such power, they don't use it. If they did, his flood of lies and misinformation would have been blocked long ago.
   Fact: Twitter, Facebook and Google, the largest of the social media firms, call themselves "platforms" for public communication. They do not claim to be publishers, which would make them liable for libel or slander perpetrated on their web sites.
   Therefore, the liability for such remarks would be on the perpetrator, and that would include the president of the United States, who is not above the law, according to a Supreme Court ruling made decades ago.
   Also, if he wants totally unrestricted comments to be posted on social media platforms, that would apply to anyone and everyone who wants to say things about him. Any system that blocks disparaging remarks about the nation's leader would reflect the dictatorial system described in the book "1984," by George Orwell.
   Meanwhile, Twitter has hidden the president's Tweet about recent disturbances in Minneapolis, saying it glorifies violence. This is the third time in two days that the company has flagged his postings as inappropriate. The first two ran the postings, but inserted a short item referring readers to fact checking on other sites. That was what prompted the presidential rant about free speech.
   But speech in America is not totally free. There are laws against libel and slander.