Vox Sentences - Trump vs. Twitter

Trump goes after Twitter for fact-checking his tweets; Boris Johnson's government faces down a worsening scandal.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters.

• President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a new executive order aiming to make it easier for regulators to punish social media companies for alleged free speech violations in moderating their content. [New York Times / Kate Conger and Mike Issac]
• Specifically, the order targets Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, seeking to allow changes around a “good faith” provision that protects tech companies from lawsuits. Such changes could make it easier for Trump and others to sue platforms like Twitter. [CNN / Brian Fung, Ryan Nobles, and Kevin Liptak]
• But the executive order could be on shaky legal ground: As Brian Fung pointed out on Twitter, the original purpose of the law was “to ensure tech companies could *not* be sued into oblivion. For the WH to leverage 230 into obtaining the opposite outcome would be to undermine the purpose of the law.” [Twitter / Brian Fung]
• The order was announced to reporters late Wednesday by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and follows a string of angry tweets by the president earlier this week. [Twitter / Kaitlan Collins]
• It also comes after Twitter made the controversial decision Tuesday to fact-check two of Trump’s tweets that included misinformation about vote-by-mail efforts. [Recode / Shirin Ghaffary]
• Though Twitter and other social media platforms have previously been reluctant to take action in response to tweets by the president, a Twitter spokesperson told Politico Wednesday that “Covid was a game changer” in terms of the platform’s ability to label misleading information as such. [Politico / Nancy Scola]
• Trump responded by accusing Twitter of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election” and “stifling FREE SPEECH” in a tweet, neither of which Twitter is actually doing. [Twitter / Donald J. Trump]
• That claim isn’t exactly new: Trump has long accused major tech companies of anti-conservative bias, though there’s no evidence that is the case. In any case, as a private company, Twitter is not governed by the First Amendment and is free to fact-check anything it likes. [Recode / Shirin Ghaffary]

• On Thursday, police in the United Kingdom said that Dominic Cummings, a top adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, may have violated the country’s lockdown rules in a way that “that would have warranted police intervention.” [CNN / Rob Picheta]
• That news is just the latest development in what has become a bona fide political scandal in the UK. On Friday last week, it was reported that Cummings, in violation of a national lockdown order, took a road trip in late March to his parents’ home. [Slate / Joshua Keating]
• It was subsequently reported that Cummings made a second trip in April and he has since faced calls for his resignation from across the political spectrum. [The Guardian / Matthew Weaver]
• Johnson has previously been criticized for his government’s coronavirus response, but the Cummings scandal has cut into his support in a way other controversies have not. In recent polling, almost 60 percent of the country believes Cummings should resign and Johnson’s support has slipped by 20 points. [NYT / Mark Landler and Stephen Castle]
• Earlier this week, a Conservative MP, Douglas Ross, resigned as a junior minister over Johnson’s defense of Cummings. "I have constituents who didn't get to say goodbye to loved ones,” he said in a statement. “I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the government was right.” [Twitter / Douglas Ross]
• Still, as Politico reported Tuesday, it’s unlikely that Cummings will be forced out for his error; if he does go, it will probably be a mutual decision reached by Cummings and Johnson. [Politico / Charlie Cooper and Emilio Casalicchio]
• For more on the scandal, check out Vox’s Worldly podcast here. Vox’s free podcasts, videos, and explanatory journalism play a vital role in helping many understand developing stories. Make a contribution today: vox.com/support-now.

[Vox / Li Zhou and Kainaz Amaria]

• The world isn't going to achieve herd immunity from the coronavirus anytime soon. [NYT / Nadja Popovich and Margot Sanger-Katz]

• In a possible conflict of interest, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff has a financial interest in companies involved in the US coronavirus response. [NPR / Tim Mak]

• How the Trump campaign is rewriting the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic with Facebook ads, tweets, and more. [Washington Post / Elyse Samuels and Meg Kelly]

[Akilah Hughes on the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer / Twitter]

Is it safe to go to the beach? What about a park? Is a heavy-breathing runner going to infect you as they pass you? In short: How do you go outside safely? [YouTube / Madeline Marshall and Sigal Samuel]