United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at removing some of the legal protections provided to social media platforms.
It provides regulators with the power to pursue lawsuits against companies like Facebook and Twitter for the way they monitor content on their platforms.
President Trump accused social media platforms of having "uncontrolled power" while signing the order.
The order is expected to face legal challenges.
Legal experts say that the United States Congress or the justice system must be involved to change the current legal understanding of protections for these platforms.
Trump has regularly accused social media platforms of stifling or censoring conservative rumors.
On Wednesday, Trump accused Twitter of electoral interference after adding fact-checking links to two of his tweets.
On Thursday, Twitter added the "find out the facts about Covid-19" tags to two tweets from a Chinese government spokesman who claimed that the coronavirus originated in the United States.
What does the executive order say?
The order aims to clarify the Communications Decency Act, a United States law that offers online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube legal protection in certain situations.
Pursuant to article 230 of the law, social networks are generally not held responsible for the content published by their users, but can engage in a "good Samaritan blockade", such as the removal of obscene, harassing or violent content.
The executive order stresses that this legal immunity does not apply if a social network modifies the content published by its users and requests that Congress legislation "remove or modify" section 230. Trump said Attorney General William Barr will "immediately begin" to draft a law for Congress to vote on later.
He also says that "misleading" 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.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio is among those who claim that platforms take on the role of "editor" when they add fact-checking labels to specific posts.
"The law still protects social media companies like Twitter because they are considered forums and not publishers," said Rubio.
"But if they have now decided to exercise an editorial role as a publisher, they should no longer be protected from liability and treated as publishers by law."
The executive order also provides for:
- the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to specify which type of content blocking will be considered deceptive, pretextual or incompatible with the terms and conditions of a service provider
- a review of government advertising on social media sites and whether those platforms impose point of view restrictions
- the restoration of the White House's "technological bias reporting tool" which allows citizens to report unfair treatment by social networks
What effect will the order have?
Donald Trump promised "big action" in response to Twitter's decision to add a fact-checking message to two of his posts. While his announcement of an executive order was heavy on rhetoric - accusing social media companies of being monopolies that threaten freedom of speech - it will be a long process before the speech turns into real action, big or not.
Independent government agencies will have to review federal law, pass new regulations, vote on them and then - in all likelihood - defend them in court. When it was all over, the presidential election in November could have come and gone.
This explains why Trump is also pushing for new congressional legislation, an easier way to change U.S. policy towards social media companies.
The real purpose of the president's order, however, can be symbolic. At the very least, the move will cause Twitter to think twice about trying to moderate or control his posts about their service.
The president relies on Twitter to spread his message without filtering from the mainstream media. If Twitter itself begins to expose one of its favorite communication tools, it is sending a message that it will reject - and make things, at least, uncomfortable for the company.
How did social networks respond?
Twitter, who is repeatedly named in the draft executive order, declined to comment.
Google, which owns YouTube, said the modification of Section 230 "would harm the American economy and its global leadership on Internet freedom."
"We have clear content policies and enforce them independently from a political standpoint. Our platforms have empowered a wide range of people and organizations across the political spectrum, giving them voice and new ways to reach their audience," claimed statement to the BBC.
On Wednesday, in an interview with Fox News, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that censoring a social media platform would not be the "right reflection" for a government concerned about censorship.
"I firmly believe that Facebook should not be the arbiter of the truth of everything people say online," said Zuckerberg.
"I think in general private companies probably shouldn't be - especially these platforms - they shouldn't be able to do it."
A conservative think tank has warned that executive order could have unintended consequences.
"In the long run, this conservative campaign against social media companies could have a devastating effect on free speech," said Matthew Feeney of the Cato Institute.
And changing the Communications Decency Act to "impose political neutrality on social media companies" could see platforms full of "legal content that they would otherwise like to remove" such as pornography, violent imagery and racism.
"Or they would have projected the content to an extent that would kill the free flow of social media information we're used to today," he said.
Feeney said the draft executive order is a "disaster" but could prove politically popular ahead of the presidential election.
What triggered the last line?
The long dispute between Mr Trump and social media companies came back on Tuesday when two of his posts received a fact check label from Twitter for the first time.
He had tweeted, without giving evidence: "There is no (zero) way that correspondence votes will be less than substantially fraudulent."
Twitter added a warning label to the post and linked to a page describing the claims as "unproven".
So on Wednesday Trump threatened to "strongly regulate" social media platforms.
He tweeted to his over 80 million followers that Republicans felt the "totally silent conservative" platforms and that he would not allow that to happen.
In a previous tweet, he claimed that Twitter was "completely suffocating free speech".
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to criticism of the platform's fact-checking policies in a series of posts, saying: "We will continue to report incorrect or disputed information about the global election."
Trump wrote a similar post on correspondence voting on Facebook on Tuesday and no such warnings were applied.
Twitter has strengthened its policies in recent years, addressing criticism that its practical approach has allowed forgeries and disinformation to thrive.