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The
Republican president in May directed the U.S. Commerce
Department to file the petition after Twitter Inc warned readers
to fact-check his posts about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in
mail-in voting.
Since then, Trump's social media posts have repeatedly been
sanctioned. On Tuesday, Facebook Inc and Twitter took action on
posts from Trump for violating their rules against coronavirus
misinformation by suggesting that COVID-19 was just like the flu
with Facebook taking the post down.
After the FCC received the Commerce Department petition July 27,
it opened it for public comment for 45 days, which expired in
mid-September. The proceeding has received more than 20,000
comments.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said last week during a call with
reporters that "commission staff are currently reviewing" the
public comments, declining to say how long that may last.
"I look forward to receiving the results of that review," Pai
said. "I'll make my decision based on the law and the facts. So
I'm not going to reach a conclusion until we have finished our
review of the record."
On Monday, Pai released his agenda for the Oct. 27 FCC meeting
without proposing any action on the petition. It can take the
FCC a year to propose and then finalize new regulations. A
spokesman for Pai declined to comment.
In August, the White House abruptly pulled the nomination of
Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly to serve another term
days after he expressed skepticism about whether the commission
had authority to issue new regulations covering social media
companies.
The two Democrats on the five-member FCC both strongly oppose
the petition.
Last month, Trump nominated Nathan Simington, a senior
administration official who has been involved in the social
media petition. "Republicans need to get smart and confirm Nate
Simington to the FCC ASAP!" Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
The petition asks the FCC to limit protections for social media
companies under Section 230, a provision of the 1996
Communications Decency Act that shields them from liability for
content posted by their users and allows them to remove lawful
but objectionable posts.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted: "REPEAL SECTION 230!!!" reiterating
his previously articulated view.
A group representing major internet companies including Facebook,
Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google urged the FCC to reject
the petition, saying it is "misguided," while it won the backing
of four Republican state attorneys general.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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