President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in November 2019. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

Legal Twitter lit up overnight as lawyers largely denounced an executive order President Donald Trump is expected to sign Thursday limiting free speech protections for social media platforms.

The president is expected to ask for a review of protections provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which largely protects providers from liability for content posted on their platforms, according to various media reports. The current form circulating on social media calls to strip that immunity if online publishers restrict access to content in a way that is "deceptive or pretextual" or "inconsistent with an online platform's terms of service."

The order, according to the draft, requests that the Federal Communications Commission clarify new regulations under Section 230. Complaints over censorship of content posted on the platforms would be submitted to the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, with the FTC determining whether any alleged censorship violates the law.

Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that the president would sign an executive order on social media as he rails against Twitter for fact-checking his unsubstantiated tweets, reigniting his long-simmering claims that he and other conservatives' speech are being infringed upon by the social media giants. The fact-check attached to Trump's tweets on mail-in voting links off to a page saying the president has made unsubstantiated claims about how mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.

The new fact checks were added as Trump and the website faced separate widespread criticism for tweets about a debunked conspiracy theory on the death of a staffer for former congressman and "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough. Twitter has said it will not remove those tweets.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday denied that its move to fact-check Trump made the company an "arbiter of truth," after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg attached the label to the competing platform during a Fox News interview. "Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," Dorsey said on Twitter.

Twitter's civic integrity policy forbids users of the platform to post "content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process."

The executive order is expected to face a number of challenges if signed in its current form. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit from conservative group Freedom Watch and right-wing figure Laura Loomer that alleged bias by big tech companies, finding the "First Amendment claim fails because it does not adequately allege that the Platforms can violate the First Amendment."

Here's a roundup of what people are saying about the executive order:

>> Kate Klonick, law professor at St. John's University: "It's unclear what to make of this because, to a certain extent, you can't just issue an executive order and overturn on a whim 25 years of judicial precedent about how a law is interpreted." [The New York Times]

>> Joshua Geltzer, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection: "Even IF Twitter's labels on Trump's tweets fall outside 230 immunity (& I'm not at all sure they do!), they're not unlawful—just subject to normal liability. So let Trump sue, then—for what? Defamation? But that requires falsity, & Twitter didn't speak falsely—Trump did! [Twitter]

>> Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University: "This order is an effort to intimidate technology companies from using tools that are indispensable to protecting the integrity of public discourse online. The order was born unconstitutional because it was issued in retaliation for Twitter's fact-checking of President Trump's tweets. Some of its provisions raise additional constitutional concerns, since they seem to contemplate that the government will investigate and punish internet service providers for decisions that are protected by the First Amendment. There may well be regulation and legislation worth considering in this sphere, but whatever else this order may be, it is not a good faith effort to protect free speech online."

>> Michael Bromwich, former Justice Department inspector general: "This Executive Order will be a hoot.  Unlawful and unenforceable.  What a waste." [Twitter]

>> Tiffany Li, technology attorney and visiting assistant law professor at Boston University: "If I'm reading this correctly, the EO claims tech platforms are doing something they're not, in violation of an incorrect interpretation of law, and tasks agencies it can't task to look into the things that aren't being done that wouldn't be wrong." [Twitter]

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