vox--2020-05-28--Section 230, the internet free speech law Trump wants to change, explained

You may have never heard of it , but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet .
The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them .
And now it ’ s under threat by one of its biggest beneficiaries : President Trump , who hopes to use it to fight back against the social media platforms he believes are unfairly censoring him and other conservative voices .
Section 230 says that internet platforms that host @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter , posts on Facebook , photos on Instagram , reviews on Yelp , or a news outlet ’ s reader comments — are not liable for what those third parties post ( with a few exceptions ) .
For instance , if a Yelp reviewer were to post something defamatory about a business , the business could sue the reviewer for libel , but it couldn ’ t sue Yelp .
Without Section 230 ’ s protections , the internet as we know it today would not exist .
If the law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by user-generated content would likely go dark .
The gravity of the situation might be lost on the president .
Trump is using this threat to bully social media platforms like Twitter into letting him post whatever he wants after Twitter put a warning label that links to a fact-checking site on two of his recent tweets .
To illustrate why there ’ s much more at stake than Trump ’ s tweets , here ’ s a look at how Section 230 went from an amendment to a law about internet porn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Trump ’ s latest weapon against perceived anti-conservative bias in the media .
In the early ’ 90s , the internet was still in its relatively unregulated infancy .
There was a lot of porn floating around platforms like AOL and the World Wide Web where anyone , including our nation ’ s impressionable children , could see it .
This alarmed some lawmakers .
In an attempt to regulate this situation , in 1995 lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill called the Communications Decency Act which would extend to the internet laws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ services .
This would also make websites and platforms responsible for any indecent or obscene things their users posted .
In the midst of this was a lawsuit between two companies you might recognize : Stratton Oakmont and Prodigy .
The former is featured in The Wolf of Wall Street , and the latter was a pioneer of the early internet .
But in 1995 , Stratton Oakmont sued Prodigy for defamation after an anonymous user claimed on a Prodigy bulletin board that the financial company ’ s president engaged in fraudulent acts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the court ’ s decision : Fearing that the Communications Decency Act would stop the burgeoning internet in its tracks and mindful of the court ’ s decision , then-Rep. ( now Sen. ) Ron Wyden and Rep. Chris Cox authored an amendment that said that “ interactive computer services ” were not responsible for what their users posted , even if those services engaged in some moderation of that third-party content .
The internet companies , in other words , were mere platforms , not publishers .
“ What I was struck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a website or a blog , they could be held personally liable for something posted on their site , ” Wyden explained to Vox ’ s Emily Stewart last year .
“ And I said then — and it ’ s the heart of my concern now — if that ’ s the case , it will kill the little guy , the startup , the inventor , the person who is essential for a competitive marketplace .
It will kill them in the crib.
” Section 230 also allows those services to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they deem objectionable .
In other words , the platforms themselves get to choose what is and what is not acceptable content , and they can decide to host it or moderate it accordingly .
That means the free speech argument frequently employed by people who are suspended or banned from these platforms — that the Constitution says they can write whatever they want — doesn ’ t apply , no matter how many times Laura Loomer tries to test it .
As Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe points out , the First @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this context : Wyden likens the dual nature of Section 230 to a sword and a shield for platforms : They ’ re shielded from liability for user content , and they have a sword to moderate it as they see fit .
The Communications Decency Act was signed into law in 1996 .
The indecency and obscenity provisions , which made it a crime to transmit such speech if it could be viewed by a minor , were immediately challenged by civil liberty groups .
The Supreme Court would ultimately strike them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of free speech .
Section 230 stayed , and the law that was initially meant to restrict free speech on the internet instead became the law that protected it .
This protection has allowed the internet to thrive .
Think about it : Websites like Facebook , Reddit , and YouTube have millions and even billions of users .
If these platforms had to monitor and approve every single thing every user posted , they simply wouldn ’ t be able to exist .
No website or platform can moderate at such an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to open themselves up to the legal liability of doing so .
That doesn ’ t mean Section 230 is perfect .
Some argue that it gives platforms too little accountability , allowing some of the worst parts of the internet — think 8chan or sites that promote racism — to flourish along with the best .
Simply put , internet platforms have been happy to use the shield to protect themselves from lawsuits , but they ’ ve largely ignored the sword to moderate the bad stuff their users upload .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under threat .
In 2018 , two bills — the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act ( FOSTA ) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act ( SESTA ) — were signed into law , which changed parts of Section 230 .
Now , platforms could be deemed responsible for prostitution ads posted by third parties .
These were ostensibly meant to make it easier for authorities to go after websites that were used for sex trafficking , but they did this by carving out an exception to Section @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amid all of this was a growing public sentiment that social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook were becoming too powerful .
In the minds of many , Facebook even influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election by offering up its user data to shady outfits like Cambridge Analytica .
There were also allegations of anti-conservative bias .
Right-wing figures who once rode the internet ’ s relative lack of moderation to fame and fortune were being held accountable for various infringements of hateful content rules and kicked off the very platforms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and his expulsion from Facebook and other social media platforms is perhaps the most illustrative example of this .
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz , demonstrating a profound misunderstanding of Section 230 , claimed in a 2018 op-ed that the law required the internet platforms it was designed to protect to be “ neutral public forums.
” Lawmakers have tried to introduce legislation that would fulfill that promise ever since .
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert introduced the Biased Algorithm Deterrence Act in 2019 , which would consider any social media service that used algorithms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s permission or knowledge to be legally considered a publisher , not a platform , thereby removing Section 230 ’ s protections .
( Remember the Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy case ?
This bill would have hearkened back to that era . )
Later that year , Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act , which would require that , in order to be granted Section 230 protections , social media companies would have to show the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) that their content moderation practices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bills went anywhere , but the implications were obvious : Emboldened by FOSTA-SESTA , the two sex-trafficking bills from 2018 , lawmakers not only wanted to chip away at Section 230 but were actively testing out ways to do it .
Their latest attempt — and the most likely to succeed — is a bipartisan bill introduced in March called the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies ( EARN IT ) Act , from Sens .
Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal .
Here , the lawmakers used the prevention of child @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Section 230 and end encryption by requiring companies to follow a set of “ best practices ” or else lose their Section 230 immunity from child pornography charges .
Some privacy advocates worry that these best practices would extend to requiring tech companies to provide law enforcement with access to all user content .
A law like this would effectively force websites to comply with those “ best practices , ” as they ’ d be sued out of existence if they didn ’ t .
The law has bipartisan support , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nine cosponsors .
And now President Trump , who has benefited greatly from social media , is trying to dial back Section 230 ’ s protections through an executive order .
Trump signed the order roughly 48 hours after Twitter applied a new policy of flagging potentially false or misleading content to two of the president ’ s tweets .
At the signing ceremony , Trump referred to Twitter ’ s actions as “ editorial decisions , ” and Attorney General Bill Barr referred to social media companies as “ publishers.
” Barr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and his Department of Justice has been looking into the law and how he believes it allows “ selective ” removal of political speech .
Barr added that he thinks there is bipartisan support that Section 230 “ has been stretched way beyond its original intention ” and was allowing “ behemoths ” that controlled massive amounts of information to censor it and “ act as editors and publishers.
” “ They ’ ve had unchecked power to censure , restrict , edit , shape , hide , alter virtually any form @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public audiences , ” Trump said in the Oval Office on Thursday .
“ We can not allow that to happen , especially when they go about doing what they ’ re doing.
” It ’ s unclear if Trump ’ s executive order could stop social media companies from doing much at all .
The White House did not immediately release the full text of the executive order after Trump signed it .
A draft of the order says that platforms that engage in anything beyond “ good faith ” moderation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not entitled to Section 230 ’ s protections .
It also calls on the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) to propose regulations that clarify what constitutes “ good faith ; ” the FTC to take action against “ large internet platforms ” that “ restrict speech ; ” and the attorney general to work with state attorneys general to see if those platforms violate any state laws regarding unfair business practices .
While the draft order talks a big game , legal experts don ’ t seem to think much — or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ backed up , citing First Amendment concerns .
It ’ s also unclear whether or not the FCC has the authority to regulate Section 230 in this way , or if the president can change the scope of a law without any congressional approval .
“ I have warned for years that this administration was threatening 230 in order to chill speech and bully companies like Facebook , YouTube , and Twitter into giving him favorable treatment , ” Wyden said in a statement .
“ Today Trump proved me right .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who participates in online speech , to resist this illegal act by all possible means .
Giving in to bullying by this president may be the single most unpatriotic act an American could undertake.
” “ As the co-author of Section 230 , let me make this clear : There is nothing in the law about political neutrality , ” Wyden added .
“ It does not say companies like Twitter are forced to carry misinformation about voting , especially from the president .
Efforts to erode Section 230 will only make online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangerous.
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Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
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You may have never heard of it, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them.
Decades later, it’s never been more controversial. People from both political parties and all three branches of government have threatened to reform or even repeal it. The debate centers around whether we should reconsider a law from the internet’s infancy that was meant to help struggling websites and internet-based companies grow. After all, these internet-based businesses are now some of the biggest and most powerful in the world, and users’ ability to speak freely on them bears much bigger consequences.
While President Biden pushes Congress to pass laws to reform Section 230, its fate may lie in the hands of the judicial branch, as the Supreme Court is considering two cases — one involving YouTube and Google, another targeting Twitter — that could significantly change the law and, therefore, the internet it helped create.
Section 230 says that internet platforms hosting third-party content are not liable for what those third parties post (with a few exceptions). That third-party content could include things like a news outlet’s reader comments, tweets on Twitter, posts on Facebook, photos on Instagram, or reviews on Yelp. If a Yelp reviewer were to post something defamatory about a business, for example, the business could sue the reviewer for libel, but thanks to Section 230, it couldn’t sue Yelp.
Without Section 230’s protections, the internet as we know it today would not exist. If the law were taken away, many websites driven by user-generated content would likely go dark. A repeal of Section 230 wouldn’t just affect the big platforms that seem to get all the negative attention, either. It could affect websites of all sizes and online discourse.
Section 230’s salacious origins
In the early ’90s, the internet was still in its relatively unregulated infancy. There was a lot of porn floating around, and anyone, including impressionable children, could easily find and see it. This alarmed some lawmakers. In an attempt to regulate this situation, in 1995 lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill called the Communications Decency Act, which would extend laws governing obscene and indecent use of telephone services to the internet. This would also make websites and platforms responsible for any indecent or obscene things their users posted.
In the midst of this was a lawsuit between two companies you might recognize: Stratton Oakmont and Prodigy. The former is featured in The Wolf of Wall Street, and the latter was a pioneer of the early internet. But in 1994, Stratton Oakmont sued Prodigy for defamation after an anonymous user claimed on a Prodigy bulletin board that the financial company’s president engaged in fraudulent acts. The court ruled in Stratton Oakmont’s favor, saying that because Prodigy moderated posts on its forums, it exercised editorial control that made it just as liable for the speech on its platform as the people who actually made that speech. Meanwhile, Prodigy’s rival online service, Compuserve, was found not liable for a user’s speech in an earlier case because Compuserve didn’t moderate content.
Fearing that the Communications Decency Act would stop the burgeoning internet in its tracks, and mindful of the Prodigy decision, then-Rep. (now Sen.) Ron Wyden and Rep. Chris Cox authored an amendment to CDA that said “interactive computer services” were not responsible for what their users posted, even if those services engaged in some moderation of that third-party content.
“What I was struck by then is that if somebody owned a website or a blog, they could be held personally liable for something posted on their site,” Wyden told Vox’s Emily Stewart in 2019. “And I said then — and it’s the heart of my concern now — if that’s the case, it will kill the little guy, the startup, the inventor, the person who is essential for a competitive marketplace. It will kill them in the crib.”
As the beginning of Section 230 says: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” These are considered by some to be the 26 words that created the internet, but the law says more than that.
Section 230 also allows those services to “restrict access” to any content they deem objectionable. In other words, the platforms themselves get to choose what is and what is not acceptable content, and they can decide to host it or moderate it accordingly. That means the free speech argument frequently employed by people who are suspended or banned from these platforms — that their Constitutional right to free speech has been violated — doesn’t apply. Wyden likens the dual nature of Section 230 to a sword and a shield for platforms: They’re shielded from liability for user content, and they have a sword to moderate it as they see fit.
The Communications Decency Act was signed into law in 1996. The indecency and obscenity provisions about transmitting porn to minors were immediately challenged by civil liberty groups and struck down by the Supreme Court, which said they were too restrictive of free speech. Section 230 stayed, and so a law that was initially meant to restrict free speech on the internet instead became the law that protected it.
This protection has allowed the internet to thrive. Think about it: Websites like Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube have millions and even billions of users. If these platforms had to monitor and approve every single thing every user posted, they simply wouldn’t be able to exist. No website or platform can moderate at such an incredible scale, and no one wants to open themselves up to the legal liability of doing so. On the other hand, a website that didn’t moderate anything at all would quickly become a spam-filled cesspool that few people would want to swim in.
That doesn’t mean Section 230 is perfect. Some argue that it gives platforms too little accountability, allowing some of the worst parts of the internet to flourish. Others say it allows platforms that have become hugely influential and important to suppress and censor speech based on their own whims or supposed political biases. Depending on who you talk to, internet platforms are either using the sword too much or not enough. Either way, they’re hiding behind the shield to protect themselves from lawsuits while they do it. Though it has been a law for nearly three decades, Section 230’s existence may have never been as precarious as it is now.
The Supreme Court might determine Section 230’s fate
Justice Clarence Thomas has made no secret of his desire for the court to consider Section 230, saying in multiple opinions that he believes lower courts have interpreted it to give too-broad protections to what have become very powerful companies. He got his wish in February 2023, when the court heard two similar cases that include it. In both, plaintiffs argued that their family members were killed by terrorists who posted content on those platforms. In the first, Gonzalez v. Google, the family of a woman killed in a 2015 terrorist attack in France said YouTube promoted ISIS videos and sold advertising on them, thereby materially supporting ISIS. In Twitter v. Taamneh, the family of a man killed in a 2017 ISIS attack in Turkey said the platform didn’t go far enough to identify and remove ISIS content, which is in violation of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act — and could then mean that Section 230 doesn’t apply to such content.
These cases give the Supreme Court the chance to reshape, redefine, or even repeal the foundational law of the internet, which could fundamentally change it. And while the Supreme Court chose to take these cases on, it’s not certain that they’ll rule in favor of the plaintiffs. In oral arguments in late February, several justices didn’t seem too convinced during the Gonzalez v. Google arguments that they could or should, especially considering the monumental possible consequences and impact of such a decision. In Twitter v. Taamneh, the justices focused more on if and how the Sponsors of Terrorism law applied to tweets than they did on Section 230. The rulings are expected in June.
In the meantime, don’t expect the original authors of Section 230 to go away quietly. Wyden and Cox submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court for the Gonzalez case, where they said: “The real-time transmission of user-generated content that Section 230 fosters has become a backbone of online activity, relied upon by innumerable Internet users and platforms alike. Given the enormous volume of content created by Internet users today, Section 230’s protection is even more important now than when the statute was enacted.”
Congress and presidents are getting sick of Section 230, too
In 2018, two bills — the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) — were signed into law, which changed parts of Section 230. The updates mean that platforms can now be deemed responsible for prostitution ads posted by third parties. These changes were ostensibly meant to make it easier for authorities to go after websites that were used for sex trafficking, but it did so by carving out an exception to Section 230. That could open the door to even more exceptions in the future.
Amid all of this was a growing public sentiment that social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook were becoming too powerful. In the minds of many, Facebook even influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election by offering up its user data to shady outfits like Cambridge Analytica. There were also allegations of anti-conservative bias. Right-wing figures who once rode the internet’s relative lack of moderation to fame and fortune were being held accountable for various infringements of hateful content rules and kicked off the very platforms that helped create them. Alex Jones and his expulsion from Facebook and other social media platforms — even Twitter under Elon Musk won’t let him back — is perhaps the best example of this.
In a 2018 op-ed, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) claimed that Section 230 required the internet platforms it was designed to protect to be “neutral public forums.” The law doesn’t actually say that, but many Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would fulfill that promise. On the other side, Democrats have introduced bills that would hold social media platforms accountable if they didn’t do more to prevent harmful content or if their algorithms promoted it.
There are some bipartisan efforts to change Section 230, too. The EARN IT Act from Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), for example, would remove Section 230 immunity from platforms that didn’t follow a set of best practices to detect and remove child sexual abuse material. The partisan bills haven’t really gotten anywhere in Congress. But EARN IT, which was introduced in the last two sessions, was passed out of committee in the Senate and ready for a Senate floor vote. That vote never came, but Blumenthal and Graham have already signaled that they plan to reintroduce EARN IT this session for a third try.
In the executive branch, former President Trump became a very vocal critic of Section 230 in 2020 after Twitter and Facebook started deleting and tagging his posts that contained inaccuracies about Covid-19 and mail-in voting. He issued an executive order that said Section 230 protections should only apply to platforms that have “good faith” moderation, and then called on the FCC to make rules about what constituted good faith. This didn’t happen, and President Biden revoked the executive order months after taking office.
But Biden isn’t a fan of Section 230, either. During his presidential campaign, he said he wanted it repealed. As president, Biden has said he wants it to be reformed by Congress. Until Congress can agree on what’s wrong with Section 230, however, it doesn’t look likely that they’ll pass a law that significantly changes it.
However, some Republican states have been making their own anti-Section 230 moves. In 2021, Florida passed the Stop Social Media Censorship Act, which prohibits certain social media platforms from banning politicians or media outlets. That same year, Texas passed HB 20, which forbids large platforms from removing or moderating content based on a user’s viewpoint.
Neither law is currently in effect. A federal judge blocked the Florida law in 2022 due to the possibility of it violating free speech laws as well as Section 230. The state has appealed to the Supreme Court. The Texas law has made a little more progress. A district court blocked the law last year, and then the Fifth Circuit controversially reversed that decision before deciding to stay the law in order to give the Supreme Court the chance to take the case. We’re still waiting to see if it does.
If Section 230 were to be repealed — or even significantly reformed — it really could change the internet as we know it. It remains to be seen if that’s for better or for worse.
Update, February 23, 2023, 3 pm ET: This story, originally published on May 28, 2020, has been updated several times, most recently with the latest news from the Supreme Court cases related to Section 230.


vox--2020-05-28--Boris Johnson’s top adviser took a lockdown road trip. Now it’s a huge scandal.

A top adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson got caught taking a lockdown road trip .
And somehow , amid the United Kingdom ’ s still-unfolding coronavirus crisis , it has exploded into an enormous political scandal .
Dominic Cummings , the prime minister ’ s top adviser and a key Brexit architect , drove 260 miles from London to his parents ’ home in Durham at the end of March while the entire United Kingdom was under strict stay-at-home orders .
Cummings said he made the trip because he was worried about childcare for his four-year-old son .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and he feared he would also become sick with Covid-19 — which , at that point , had spread throughout the prime minister ’ s office at 10 Downing Street where Cummings works .
Johnson himself announced his diagnosis on March 27 , the day Cummings is believed to have made the journey .
Cummings ’ s indiscretion might have been forgiven by the British public ( and tabloid press ) if it had ended there .
But the scandal got even knottier .
Cummings himself came down with the coronavirus at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was later spotted on April 12 with his wife and son at Barnard Castle , about 30 miles away from Durham .
He later claimed he ’ d been having trouble with his vision and needed to take the drive to test his eyesight before making the long drive back to London — which is a totally normal and completely safe way to figure out if you can see .
Britain ’ s papers broke the story last week of Cummings ’ s sojourns , and it has since spiraled into a national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , damaged Johnson ’ s approval ratings significantly for the first time during the pandemic .
This particular drama lacks many of the tawdry details or shocking malfeasance that make up the juiciest scandals .
But it has resonated deeply with a public that ’ s been ordered to stay at home and follow the rules for two months , as the country struggles to find a way out of lockdown and the coronavirus death toll surpassed 37,000 .
But what really supercharged the controversy was Cummings ’ s defiance when confronted with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s repeated defense of his top aide , even as critics from Johnson ’ s own party call on Cummings to resign .
Johnson has refused to fire Cummings and insists the British public wants to move on from this scandal .
“ What they want now is for us to focus on them and their needs rather than on a political ding-dong about what one adviser may or may not have done , ” Johnson told a parliamentary committee this week .
The Cummings affair has , in lots of ways , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the failures of the British government ’ s handling of the coronavirus more generally .
Cummings has been closely involved in the government ’ s response to the pandemic .
And Cummings himself is a controversial figure because of his involvement in the Brexit campaign .
He ’ s tried to cultivate an image that he ’ s something of a political mastermind , smarter than the rest of the people in power .
Given that , it isn ’ t a huge surprise that the public and some politicians would turn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Cummings has clearly metastasized the scandal .
It is both confounding , and , for some critics , a reaffirmation of Johnson ’ s worst impulses : that he cares more about retaining power than about executing it wisely , even during a national emergency .
The question now is how long the Cummings scandal will dominate the news during the pandemic , and whether , and how deeply , it will damage Johnson ’ s premiership .
A road trip in the time of coronavirus , but only if you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On March 23 , Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced nationwide stay-at-home orders .
The UK had initially chosen not to lock down instead embracing more moderate restrictions to build herd immunity .
But the government backed away from that plan when it became clear it wasn ’ t tenable and followed its European neighbors in instituting sweeping lockdown orders .
The government guidelines asked that people remain at their primary residences and only leave for necessary work travel , solo exercise , the purchase of basic necessities like food and medicine , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or caring for a vulnerable person .
Gatherings of more than two people not part of the same household were also banned .
A few days later , on March 27 , Johnson announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and was self-isolating .
On that day , British press filmed Cummings running , literally , away from 10 Downing Street , a clip that became something of a joke at the time .
Johnson ’ s conditioned worsened and he had to be hospitalized , and he later spent a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has since recovered and returned to his duties as prime minister , but he was physically absent at the start of April , as the UK ’ s Covid-19 cases and deaths began to mount .
Some of Johnson ’ s cabinet also came down with coronavirus symptoms , and 10 Downing Street confirmed Cummings had developed symptoms that weekend .
But right before then , on March 27 , the same day as Johnson ’ s diagnosis , Cummings said his wife was ill with Covid-19 symptoms , and he feared what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both became sick and who would care for his four-year-old son .
So , Cummings took a 260-mile road trip to his family ’ s home in Durham .
“ I was worried that if my wife and I were both seriously ill , possibly hospitalized , there was nobody in London we could reasonably ask to look after our child and expose themselves to Covid , ” Cummings said of the situation at a news conference Monday .
Of course , the UK government ’ s guidance at the time was that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and self-isolate .
As the BBC reports , the guidance on children is a bit squishier : The government urged people with children to “ keep following this advice to the best of your ability , ” but noted that “ we are aware that not all these measures will be possible.
” The Durham police were apparently notified of the Cummings ’ s arrival , and it contacted his parents , who confirmed Cummings was self-isolating there .
Cummings was also spotted by a neighbor on his parents ’ property in early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Dancing Queen ” by the Swedish pop band Abba was playing really loudly and drew his attention .
“ I got the shock of my life , as I looked over to the gates and saw him , ” the person said .
“ There was a child , presumably his little boy , running around in front .
I recognized Dominic Cummings , he ’ s a very distinctive figure.
” But the real kicker came on April 12 , when Cummings and his family visited Barnard Castle , about 30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that also happened to his wife ’ s birthday .
Cummings was seen by another passerby .
Two days later , he returned to work at 10 Downing Street .
The British press broke the news of Cummings ’ s sojourns last week , and he immediately took criticism for having flouted both the lockdown rules and the guidelines for people with Covid-19 .
People also pointed out that Cummings ’ s wife , who ’ d written about her Covid-19 ordeal in a column for the weekly British magazine the Spectator , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they had never left London .
“ After the uncertainty of the bug itself , we emerged from quarantine into the almost comical uncertainty of London lockdown , ” she wrote .
The hypocrisy of Cummings ’ s actions was obvious ; he defied the very government rules that he ’ d likely helped craft while everyone else had to obey the restrictions and potentially face fines if they broke the rules .
Other figures have also lost their jobs for similar transgressions : Neil Ferguson , a government medical adviser who helped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had to resign in May after Britain ’ s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that his “ married lover ” had visited him in lockdown .
And Scotland ’ s medical officer had to step down after visiting her second home .
But Cummings has shown no remorse about his trip , saying he behaved “ reasonably and legally.
” As calls increased for Cummings to step down , Johnson also continued to defend him .
At a press conference on Sunday , Johnson said his aide had acted “ responsibly , legally and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any father , any parent , would frankly understand what he did and I certainly do.
” Criticism continued to mount , however .
On Monday , Cummings gave a rare press conference in which , somehow , he managed to make the situation so very much worse .
“ I don ’ t regret what I did , ” Cummings said Monday , “ I think reasonable people may well disagree about how I thought about what to do in the circumstances , but I think what I did was actually reasonable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his concerns about his child as a “ very complicated , very tricky situation.
” But while his parental concerns are legitimate , Cummings ’ s framing of his situation as unique — when scores of other families also had to deal with childcare concerns as they battled the virus ( and still followed the rules ) — came off as tone deaf .
Even more bizarre , Cummings defended his trip to Barnard Castle on April 12 by saying he ’ d done so to test his eyesight , which had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he put it , before risking the 260-mile drive back to London with his child and wife in the car , they just decided to go on a “ short drive to see if I could drive safely , ” which , dear god .
Cummings ’ s press conference did little to convince anyone that he hadn ’ t broken lockdown rules , that he largely felt justified in doing so .
But Johnson has continued to defend Cummings and has kept trying to urge the public and fellow politicians to move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a massive test and trace system this Thursday , and members of Parliament challenged Johnson on how the government would force people to obey the rules if he couldn ’ t do so in his own government .
Johnson ’ s opponents have , of course , jumped on the debacle .
“ The public have sacrificed so much for the health of our nation - which he ’ s now undermined , ” Labour leader Keir Starmer said Thursday .
“ And sent a message that there ’ s one rule for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” But even members of Johnson ’ s own party are frustrated with his defense of Cummings .
Douglas Ross , a junior Scotland Office Minister in Johnson ’ s government quit in protest this week , saying he had “ constituents who didn ’ t get to say goodbye to their loved ones ; families who could not mourn together ; people who did not visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government.
” “ I can not in good faith tell them that they were all wrong and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right , ” he added .
More than 40 Conservative members of Parliament have called on Cummings to resign and about two dozen more have criticized Cummings ’ s actions .
The British tabloids , especially those that usually favor Conservatives , have also turned on Cummings .
On Thursday , Durham police said that Cummings had potentially violated the rules , though it would not take retroactive action .
Johnson , noting this , told reporters Thursday that the “ matter was closed.
” The Cummings scandal could have real consequences On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very easy to understand : It ’ s a visceral reaction to blatant hypocrisy .
This is about an official who thinks the rules don ’ t apply to him , who went about “ breaking the spirit and letter of lockdown rules he helped to write , ” Guardian columnist Marina Hyde wrote , adding that she guessed he wanted to be a “ rule-maker , not a rule-taker , ” a dig that references Brexiteers ’ critique of the European Union ( a message Cummings had a role in shaping ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why this scandal has blown up .
Cummings is a bit of a strange figure in British politics , a political adviser who has tried to paint himself as an anti-establishment outsider and off-beat mastermind .
What helped Cummings develop that reputation was his involvement in the 2016 “ Vote Leave ” Brexit campaign , which is how Johnson and Cummings first teamed up .
And we know how that all turned out .
Cummings has continued to advise Johnson as prime minister and likely had a big hand in some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of “ getting Brexit done , ” even it meant threatening a no-deal exit .
Of course , Johnson succeeded in getting a deal , and with Cummings ’ s help , delivered a massive Conservative victory in elections last December , where Conservatives won seats from Labour-strongholds that they once only dreamed about .
And Cummings , in his time at 10 Downing Street , has installed loyalists and sidelined rivals .
His people , as much as Johnson ’ s , are in power now , which makes him a bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ UK faces a massive crisis in the coronavirus , Cummings remains Johnson ’ s most important adviser .
The dynamic works : Johnson gets to be the public face , but the hard work of governance was never his thing .
Cummings is the details guy , the person who makes it all happen behind the scenes , and presumably is happy to be there .
And Cummings has been deeply involved in the UK ’ s coronavirus response .
He was reportedly an early champion of the “ herd immunity ” strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the UK lagged on implementing the lockdown and is only now ramping up testing and tracing .
It has the highest death toll in Europe , at more than 37,000 .
And the UK , still under lockdown , though modified , is , like other places , struggling with the long-term economic consequences of a prolonged shutdown .
Many in the business community — the traditional constituency of Conservatives — are concerned about the country ’ s economic future .
The Cummings affair , then , has become an outlet for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government and its handling of the pandemic .
In taking his 260-mile jaunt , Cummings also has shown that he ’ s unwilling to join in the national sacrifice that the rest of the public has been asked to make .
Johnson , in defending Cummings , has now made his “ follow the rules ” and “ we ’ ll get through this together ” shtick ring hollow .
Johnson ’ s approval has remained relatively steady throughout the crisis .
It ’ s in part because he ’ s managed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seriously ill with Covid-19 , and he appeared genuinely heartfelt about those who helped him survive .
But the Cummings affair has turned a segment of the public against Johnson ’ s government .
One polling firm showed Johnson ’ s approval rating dropped 20 points .
A YouGov poll this week had 71 percent of voters saying Cummings broke lockdown rules , with 59 percent saying he should resign .
( And that includes 46 percent of Conservative voters . )
Despite the public outrage , Johnson hasn ’ t budged .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ late .
As one former Cabinet minister told Politico : “ You either dig in or you don ’ t .
The capital is spent now .
If [ Johnson ] got rid of him he would lose even more capital and he would be weakened .
If he got rid of him now the blood would be in the water and the sharks would smell it.
” Maybe this will work : Cummings can be the villain , and the public will be distracted from the bigger coronavirus challenges the country faces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cummings ’ s antics may be how it undermines the lockdown rules already in place .
A YouGov poll also found that about 70 percent of people say it will make the government ’ s job harder when it tries to enforce the restrictions .
People traveling to the beach this weekend cited Cummings as a reason why it was fair for them to break lockdown .
“ It makes it much harder for the police going forward , ” Martin Surl , the top police commissioner for Gloucester , told the BBC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quoted back at them time and time again when they try to enforce the new rules.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

A top adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson got caught taking a lockdown road trip. And somehow, amid the United Kingdom’s still-unfolding coronavirus crisis, it has exploded into an enormous political scandal.
Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s top adviser and a key Brexit architect, drove 260 miles from London to his parents’ home in Durham at the end of March while the entire United Kingdom was under strict stay-at-home orders.
Cummings said he made the trip because he was worried about childcare for his four-year-old son. His wife was sick with the coronavirus, and he feared he would also become sick with Covid-19 — which, at that point, had spread throughout the prime minister’s office at 10 Downing Street where Cummings works. Johnson himself announced his diagnosis on March 27, the day Cummings is believed to have made the journey.
Cummings’s indiscretion might have been forgiven by the British public (and tabloid press) if it had ended there. But the scandal got even knottier. Cummings himself came down with the coronavirus at the end of March, and he was later spotted on April 12 with his wife and son at Barnard Castle, about 30 miles away from Durham. He later claimed he’d been having trouble with his vision and needed to take the drive to test his eyesight before making the long drive back to London — which is a totally normal and completely safe way to figure out if you can see.
Britain’s papers broke the story last week of Cummings’s sojourns, and it has since spiraled into a national story that has, according to polls, damaged Johnson’s approval ratings significantly for the first time during the pandemic.
This particular drama lacks many of the tawdry details or shocking malfeasance that make up the juiciest scandals. But it has resonated deeply with a public that’s been ordered to stay at home and follow the rules for two months, as the country struggles to find a way out of lockdown and the coronavirus death toll surpassed 37,000.
But what really supercharged the controversy was Cummings’s defiance when confronted with his wrongdoing, and later Johnson’s repeated defense of his top aide, even as critics from Johnson’s own party call on Cummings to resign.
Johnson has refused to fire Cummings and insists the British public wants to move on from this scandal. “What they want now is for us to focus on them and their needs rather than on a political ding-dong about what one adviser may or may not have done,” Johnson told a parliamentary committee this week.
The Cummings affair has, in lots of ways, become an outlet for a public frustrated with the failures of the British government’s handling of the coronavirus more generally. Cummings has been closely involved in the government’s response to the pandemic.
And Cummings himself is a controversial figure because of his involvement in the Brexit campaign. He’s tried to cultivate an image that he’s something of a political mastermind, smarter than the rest of the people in power. Given that, it isn’t a huge surprise that the public and some politicians would turn on him.
Johnson’s defense of Cummings has clearly metastasized the scandal. It is both confounding, and, for some critics, a reaffirmation of Johnson’s worst impulses: that he cares more about retaining power than about executing it wisely, even during a national emergency.
The question now is how long the Cummings scandal will dominate the news during the pandemic, and whether, and how deeply, it will damage Johnson’s premiership.
A road trip in the time of coronavirus, but only if you’re a top aide to the PM
On March 23, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced nationwide stay-at-home orders. The UK had initially chosen not to lock down instead embracing more moderate restrictions to build herd immunity.
But the government backed away from that plan when it became clear it wasn’t tenable and followed its European neighbors in instituting sweeping lockdown orders.
The government guidelines asked that people remain at their primary residences and only leave for necessary work travel, solo exercise, the purchase of basic necessities like food and medicine, or medical needs, such as donating blood or caring for a vulnerable person. Gatherings of more than two people not part of the same household were also banned.
A few days later, on March 27, Johnson announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and was self-isolating. On that day, British press filmed Cummings running, literally, away from 10 Downing Street, a clip that became something of a joke at the time.
Dominic Cummings seen running out of the back gate from Downing Street.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has tested positive for #coronavirus.
Follow live updates here: https://t.co/Pto1iKFuZG pic.twitter.com/DpPx5M5hEj — SkyNews (@SkyNews) March 27, 2020
Johnson’s conditioned worsened and he had to be hospitalized, and he later spent a few days in the ICU. He has since recovered and returned to his duties as prime minister, but he was physically absent at the start of April, as the UK’s Covid-19 cases and deaths began to mount.
Some of Johnson’s cabinet also came down with coronavirus symptoms, and 10 Downing Street confirmed Cummings had developed symptoms that weekend. But right before then, on March 27, the same day as Johnson’s diagnosis, Cummings said his wife was ill with Covid-19 symptoms, and he feared what would happen if he and his wife both became sick and who would care for his four-year-old son.
So, Cummings took a 260-mile road trip to his family’s home in Durham. “I was worried that if my wife and I were both seriously ill, possibly hospitalized, there was nobody in London we could reasonably ask to look after our child and expose themselves to Covid,” Cummings said of the situation at a news conference Monday.
Of course, the UK government’s guidance at the time was that people with Covid-19 symptoms stay at home and self-isolate. As the BBC reports, the guidance on children is a bit squishier: The government urged people with children to “keep following this advice to the best of your ability,” but noted that “we are aware that not all these measures will be possible.”
The Durham police were apparently notified of the Cummings’s arrival, and it contacted his parents, who confirmed Cummings was self-isolating there. Cummings was also spotted by a neighbor on his parents’ property in early April, in part because the song “Dancing Queen” by the Swedish pop band Abba was playing really loudly and drew his attention.
“I got the shock of my life, as I looked over to the gates and saw him,” the person said. “There was a child, presumably his little boy, running around in front. I recognized Dominic Cummings, he’s a very distinctive figure.”
But the real kicker came on April 12, when Cummings and his family visited Barnard Castle, about 30 miles from Dunham, on a day that also happened to his wife’s birthday. Cummings was seen by another passerby. Two days later, he returned to work at 10 Downing Street.
The British press broke the news of Cummings’s sojourns last week, and he immediately took criticism for having flouted both the lockdown rules and the guidelines for people with Covid-19.
People also pointed out that Cummings’s wife, who’d written about her Covid-19 ordeal in a column for the weekly British magazine the Spectator, had conveniently made it sound as if they had never left London. “After the uncertainty of the bug itself, we emerged from quarantine into the almost comical uncertainty of London lockdown,” she wrote.
The hypocrisy of Cummings’s actions was obvious; he defied the very government rules that he’d likely helped craft while everyone else had to obey the restrictions and potentially face fines if they broke the rules.
This is why the #DominicCummings travel row is so damaging for @BorisJohnson government - it personally offends those who have made #lockdown sacrifices https://t.co/ouJ9W0Dth3 — Glenn Campbell (@GlennBBC) May 27, 2020
Other figures have also lost their jobs for similar transgressions: Neil Ferguson, a government medical adviser who helped create the UK’s lockdown, had to resign in May after Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that his “married lover” had visited him in lockdown. And Scotland’s medical officer had to step down after visiting her second home.
But Cummings has shown no remorse about his trip, saying he behaved “reasonably and legally.”
As calls increased for Cummings to step down, Johnson also continued to defend him. At a press conference on Sunday, Johnson said his aide had acted “responsibly, legally and with integrity,” and that “any father, any parent, would frankly understand what he did and I certainly do.”
Criticism continued to mount, however. On Monday, Cummings gave a rare press conference in which, somehow, he managed to make the situation so very much worse. “I don’t regret what I did,” Cummings said Monday, “I think reasonable people may well disagree about how I thought about what to do in the circumstances, but I think what I did was actually reasonable in these circumstances.”
'No, I don't regret what I did.'
Dominic Cummings argues he was 'reasonable' and acted within an 'exceptional circumstance' despite government instructions to stay homehttps://t.co/ZUbs7BnJ9M pic.twitter.com/K46YD9rJUh — ITV News (@itvnews) May 25, 2020
Cummings referred to his concerns about his child as a “very complicated, very tricky situation.” But while his parental concerns are legitimate, Cummings’s framing of his situation as unique — when scores of other families also had to deal with childcare concerns as they battled the virus (and still followed the rules) — came off as tone deaf.
Even more bizarre, Cummings defended his trip to Barnard Castle on April 12 by saying he’d done so to test his eyesight, which had been affected by his illness — or as he put it, before risking the 260-mile drive back to London with his child and wife in the car, they just decided to go on a “short drive to see if I could drive safely,” which, dear god.
“We agreed that we should go for a short drive to see if I could drive safely.”
When you’re speaking the truth, you do not need a script to read from word to word.
At this point they are insulting our intelligence, no one is above the law. #cummmings #COVID__19 pic.twitter.com/zzWtrbGzia — hazal (@hazalyarend) May 26, 2020
Cummings’s press conference did little to convince anyone that he hadn’t broken lockdown rules, that he largely felt justified in doing so.
But Johnson has continued to defend Cummings and has kept trying to urge the public and fellow politicians to move on. The UK is rolling out a massive test and trace system this Thursday, and members of Parliament challenged Johnson on how the government would force people to obey the rules if he couldn’t do so in his own government.
Johnson’s opponents have, of course, jumped on the debacle. “The public have sacrificed so much for the health of our nation - which he’s now undermined,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said Thursday. “And sent a message that there’s one rule for them and another for the British people.”
But even members of Johnson’s own party are frustrated with his defense of Cummings. Douglas Ross, a junior Scotland Office Minister in Johnson’s government quit in protest this week, saying he had “constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to their loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who did not visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government.”
“I cannot in good faith tell them that they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the government was right,” he added.
More than 40 Conservative members of Parliament have called on Cummings to resign and about two dozen more have criticized Cummings’s actions. The British tabloids, especially those that usually favor Conservatives, have also turned on Cummings.
On Thursday, Durham police said that Cummings had potentially violated the rules, though it would not take retroactive action. Johnson, noting this, told reporters Thursday that the “matter was closed.”
"If one of your most senior team wasn't paying proper attention to the rules, why should anyone else?" asks @BBCLauraK
Boris Johnson replies Durham Police said they would take "no action" and that the "matter was closed"
Updates: https://t.co/XzKgKvN4Ml pic.twitter.com/gDzryfSRHH — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) May 28, 2020
The Cummings scandal could have real consequences
On one level, the Cummings affair is very easy to understand: It’s a visceral reaction to blatant hypocrisy. This is about an official who thinks the rules don’t apply to him, who went about “breaking the spirit and letter of lockdown rules he helped to write,” Guardian columnist Marina Hyde wrote, adding that she guessed he wanted to be a “rule-maker, not a rule-taker,” a dig that references Brexiteers’ critique of the European Union (a message Cummings had a role in shaping).
And that gets at another reason why this scandal has blown up. Cummings is a bit of a strange figure in British politics, a political adviser who has tried to paint himself as an anti-establishment outsider and off-beat mastermind.
What helped Cummings develop that reputation was his involvement in the 2016 “Vote Leave” Brexit campaign, which is how Johnson and Cummings first teamed up. And we know how that all turned out.
Cummings has continued to advise Johnson as prime minister and likely had a big hand in some of the prime minister’s strategy last year of “getting Brexit done,” even it meant threatening a no-deal exit. Of course, Johnson succeeded in getting a deal, and with Cummings’s help, delivered a massive Conservative victory in elections last December, where Conservatives won seats from Labour-strongholds that they once only dreamed about. And Cummings, in his time at 10 Downing Street, has installed loyalists and sidelined rivals. His people, as much as Johnson’s, are in power now, which makes him a bit harder to fire.
So as the UK faces a massive crisis in the coronavirus, Cummings remains Johnson’s most important adviser. The dynamic works: Johnson gets to be the public face, but the hard work of governance was never his thing. Cummings is the details guy, the person who makes it all happen behind the scenes, and presumably is happy to be there.
And Cummings has been deeply involved in the UK’s coronavirus response. He was reportedly an early champion of the “herd immunity” strategy that the UK ultimately abandoned, but the UK lagged on implementing the lockdown and is only now ramping up testing and tracing. It has the highest death toll in Europe, at more than 37,000.
And the UK, still under lockdown, though modified, is, like other places, struggling with the long-term economic consequences of a prolonged shutdown. Many in the business community — the traditional constituency of Conservatives — are concerned about the country’s economic future.
The Cummings affair, then, has become an outlet for a lot of the frustration with the Johnson government and its handling of the pandemic. In taking his 260-mile jaunt, Cummings also has shown that he’s unwilling to join in the national sacrifice that the rest of the public has been asked to make. Johnson, in defending Cummings, has now made his “follow the rules” and “we’ll get through this together” shtick ring hollow.
Johnson’s approval has remained relatively steady throughout the crisis. It’s in part because he’s managed the right message and because he himself was seriously ill with Covid-19, and he appeared genuinely heartfelt about those who helped him survive.
But the Cummings affair has turned a segment of the public against Johnson’s government. One polling firm showed Johnson’s approval rating dropped 20 points. A YouGov poll this week had 71 percent of voters saying Cummings broke lockdown rules, with 59 percent saying he should resign. (And that includes 46 percent of Conservative voters.)
Despite the public outrage, Johnson hasn’t budged. And now, it may be too late. As one former Cabinet minister told Politico: “You either dig in or you don’t. The capital is spent now. If [Johnson] got rid of him he would lose even more capital and he would be weakened. If he got rid of him now the blood would be in the water and the sharks would smell it.”
Maybe this will work: Cummings can be the villain, and the public will be distracted from the bigger coronavirus challenges the country faces.
But perhaps the biggest impact of Cummings’s antics may be how it undermines the lockdown rules already in place. A YouGov poll also found that about 70 percent of people say it will make the government’s job harder when it tries to enforce the restrictions. People traveling to the beach this weekend cited Cummings as a reason why it was fair for them to break lockdown.
“It makes it much harder for the police going forward,” Martin Surl, the top police commissioner for Gloucester, told the BBC on Monday. “This will be quoted back at them time and time again when they try to enforce the new rules.”


vox--2020-05-28--Trump’s Twitter tantrum is a distraction for everyone — including himself

There is a lot going on right now , to say the least — a global pandemic , an economic recession , millions of people without jobs , riots over police murdering a black man in Minnesota .
And yet , the president is in a tizzy over a label Twitter put on two of his tweets .
President Donald Trump , who has spent recent days online pushing a conspiracy theory about a former staffer of a television host he doesn ’ t like , has spun into a rage after Twitter for the first time added a fact-check @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shared misleading information .
In the tweets in question , which Trump posted on Tuesday , he claimed without evidence that there is “ no way ” that mail-in ballots “ will be anything less than substantially fraudulent , ” and particularly pinpointed California ’ s vote-by-mail plans .
Twitter added a label to Trump ’ s tweets , encouraging users to “ get the facts ” about mail-in ballots and pointing them to more information .
( Recode ’ s Shirin Ghaffary has the full breakdown on the fact-check drama . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The president accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 presidential election and of stifling free speech .
He ’ s continued to rail against the company since and is now threatening to “ strongly regulate ” or close down social media companies .
He signed an executive order on Thursday that will attempt to allow regulators to go after Facebook , Google , and Twitter for how they handle content posted on their platforms .
He and other Republicans are specifically targeting Section 230 , a part of the 1996 Communications Decency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sword for internet platforms .
They ’ re generally not liable for the content posted on their platforms ( the shield ) , and they can police their platforms however they like ( the sword ) .
Now Mark Zuckerberg is weighing in .
So is Sen. Josh Hawley .
And a bunch of other people .
Here ’ s the thing : Republicans have been complaining about supposed social media bias against conservatives for a long time .
Last year , Trump hosted a sham social media summit at the White @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the big social media companies .
And Hawley — sometimes seriously , sometimes not — has had an eye on taking on Big Tech for quite some time .
There are legitimate questions to explore about the power and scope of tech giants , and there are debates to have about Section 230 , too .
Democrats have raised concerns about it as well .
But is now really the time , given , you know , everything ?
On Wednesday evening , the official coronavirus death count in the United States surpassed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Thursday , Trump fired off multiple tweets about his feud with Twitter and his upcoming executive order before acknowledging the deaths .
When asked about the timing of Trump ’ s tweets at a press conference on Thursday afternoon , White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president had lowered flags to half-staff the day before .
It appears as though the president ’ s attention right now is trained very much on Twitter , a label put on a tweet , and whether or not he can lie on social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s done freely until Twitter ’ s action this week .
It ’ s also important to note that Twitter ’ s move was a small one .
It didn ’ t take down his tweets .
It didn ’ t take down his account .
And it ’ s hard to imagine Twitter ever would make such a move , since its policies specifically grant exceptions to posts from world leaders , which are considered “ newsworthy.
” Trump lies a lot , so you can see why , for him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ platform might start to flag when he does it — especially months ahead of an election .
This fits into a clearly established narrative and campaign plan he ’ s pursued for a while to distract the press and the public from more urgent issues , and to create a political boogeyman in tech companies .
And the president seeks to politicize everything , including a public health emergency , which will ultimately impact how social media companies approach the matter .
But of all the things for him to be focusing on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to justify why a Twitter fact-check would be the top priority .
As Vox ’ s German Lopez has laid out , the Trump administration wasted weeks and even months of valuable time at the onset of the coronavirus crisis , as it spread abroad and to the US .
It lagged behind other countries in terms of testing , contact tracing , and health care capacity in vital moments .
And the delays , not only at the federal level but across the country , led to an estimated 36,000 more lives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sooner , according to Columbia University .
The president , staying true to form , has often congratulated himself for his coronavirus response .
Earlier this week , he estimated that if he hadn ’ t “ done his job well , ” more than a million people would have died .
And for any shortcomings , he tends to blame others — China , the states , etc .
While the situation has improved modestly in the US , the coronavirus crisis is not over .
Scientists are still searching for treatments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unclear whether reopenings will bring about a resurgence in the disease or if we ’ ll see cases start to crop up again in the fall .
And there is also the economic aspect of the crisis : Millions of people have lost their jobs ; businesses have been shuttered , some permanently ; and there ’ s an enormous amount of uncertainty about what ’ s ahead .
The White House ’ s priorities seem more than a bit off It ’ s been difficult to parse the White House ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all of this and what does not .
Twitter label ?
Code red .
State economies going under ?
Their own fault , especially if they ’ re blue states .
Another stimulus ?
Eh , maybe let ’ s wait and see .
Trump seems eager to take the victory lap on coronavirus , even though testing is only just now getting up to speed and a vaccine is months and even years away .
The Defense Department on Thursday announced it has signed a contract to increase domestic production of N-95 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ until August .
There ’ s no way to get into the president ’ s head and clearly identify his motivations on this , but it ’ s fair to make some informed judgments , given his patterns of action and personality .
Sure , he ’ s probably bothered by Twitter .
He also knows this is a way to distract from more serious issues and is well aware this is a way to gin up his base and generate anger to help propel his campaign forward .
This is an easy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one he ’ s pushed before — there was a similar dustup over a social media bias draft out of the White House in August 2019 .
But this isn ’ t just a distraction for the media or for the public — it ’ s also a distraction for Trump .
And the president has already admitted that earlier distractions hindered his coronavirus response .
In March , he said that he was “ probably ” sidetracked by impeachment earlier this year as the virus spread .
Now worried about the Twitter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s a vital moment for the country , and he ’ s focusing his right to lie on one specific online platform .
After all , as Mark Zuckerberg ’ s made clear , Facebook has no problem with it .
Trump wants to win reelection in November , and that ’ s his focus right now .
Bashing Twitter is a means to that end .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making @ @ @ @ @ @

There is a lot going on right now, to say the least — a global pandemic, an economic recession, millions of people without jobs, riots over police murdering a black man in Minnesota. And yet, the president is in a tizzy over a label Twitter put on two of his tweets.
President Donald Trump, who has spent recent days online pushing a conspiracy theory about a former staffer of a television host he doesn’t like, has spun into a rage after Twitter for the first time added a fact-check label to two of his tweets that shared misleading information.
In the tweets in question, which Trump posted on Tuesday, he claimed without evidence that there is “no way” that mail-in ballots “will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” and particularly pinpointed California’s vote-by-mail plans. Twitter added a label to Trump’s tweets, encouraging users to “get the facts” about mail-in ballots and pointing them to more information. (Recode’s Shirin Ghaffary has the full breakdown on the fact-check drama.)
And then, all hell broke loose.
The president accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 presidential election and of stifling free speech. He’s continued to rail against the company since and is now threatening to “strongly regulate” or close down social media companies. He signed an executive order on Thursday that will attempt to allow regulators to go after Facebook, Google, and Twitter for how they handle content posted on their platforms. He and other Republicans are specifically targeting Section 230, a part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that acts as a shield and a sword for internet platforms. They’re generally not liable for the content posted on their platforms (the shield), and they can police their platforms however they like (the sword). Now Mark Zuckerberg is weighing in. So is Sen. Josh Hawley. And a bunch of other people.
Here’s the thing: Republicans have been complaining about supposed social media bias against conservatives for a long time. Last year, Trump hosted a sham social media summit at the White House during which he declined to invite the big social media companies. And Hawley — sometimes seriously, sometimes not — has had an eye on taking on Big Tech for quite some time.
There are legitimate questions to explore about the power and scope of tech giants, and there are debates to have about Section 230, too. Democrats have raised concerns about it as well.
But is now really the time, given, you know, everything?
100,000 coronavirus deaths and a “Stay Tuned” on Twitter
On Wednesday evening, the official coronavirus death count in the United States surpassed 100,000 people. And yet on Wednesday and Thursday, Trump fired off multiple tweets about his feud with Twitter and his upcoming executive order before acknowledging the deaths. When asked about the timing of Trump’s tweets at a press conference on Thursday afternoon, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president had lowered flags to half-staff the day before.
It appears as though the president’s attention right now is trained very much on Twitter, a label put on a tweet, and whether or not he can lie on social media with absolute impunity, which he’s done freely until Twitter’s action this week. It’s also important to note that Twitter’s move was a small one. It didn’t take down his tweets. It didn’t take down his account. And it’s hard to imagine Twitter ever would make such a move, since its policies specifically grant exceptions to posts from world leaders, which are considered “newsworthy.”
Trump lies a lot, so you can see why, for him, it would be annoying that a platform might start to flag when he does it — especially months ahead of an election. This fits into a clearly established narrative and campaign plan he’s pursued for a while to distract the press and the public from more urgent issues, and to create a political boogeyman in tech companies. And the president seeks to politicize everything, including a public health emergency, which will ultimately impact how social media companies approach the matter.
But of all the things for him to be focusing on right now, it’s hard to justify why a Twitter fact-check would be the top priority.
As Vox’s German Lopez has laid out, the Trump administration wasted weeks and even months of valuable time at the onset of the coronavirus crisis, as it spread abroad and to the US. It lagged behind other countries in terms of testing, contact tracing, and health care capacity in vital moments. And the delays, not only at the federal level but across the country, led to an estimated 36,000 more lives lost than if the government had acted sooner, according to Columbia University.
The president, staying true to form, has often congratulated himself for his coronavirus response. Earlier this week, he estimated that if he hadn’t “done his job well,” more than a million people would have died. And for any shortcomings, he tends to blame others — China, the states, etc.
While the situation has improved modestly in the US, the coronavirus crisis is not over. Scientists are still searching for treatments and vaccines, and it’s unclear whether reopenings will bring about a resurgence in the disease or if we’ll see cases start to crop up again in the fall. And there is also the economic aspect of the crisis: Millions of people have lost their jobs; businesses have been shuttered, some permanently; and there’s an enormous amount of uncertainty about what’s ahead.
The White House’s priorities seem more than a bit off
It’s been difficult to parse the White House’s logic on what counts as urgent in all of this and what does not. Twitter label? Code red. State economies going under? Their own fault, especially if they’re blue states. Another stimulus? Eh, maybe let’s wait and see. Trump seems eager to take the victory lap on coronavirus, even though testing is only just now getting up to speed and a vaccine is months and even years away. The Defense Department on Thursday announced it has signed a contract to increase domestic production of N-95 ventilator filters and respirators — but not until August.
There’s no way to get into the president’s head and clearly identify his motivations on this, but it’s fair to make some informed judgments, given his patterns of action and personality. Sure, he’s probably bothered by Twitter. He also knows this is a way to distract from more serious issues and is well aware this is a way to gin up his base and generate anger to help propel his campaign forward. This is an easy button to push for Trump, and one he’s pushed before — there was a similar dustup over a social media bias draft out of the White House in August 2019.
But this isn’t just a distraction for the media or for the public — it’s also a distraction for Trump. And the president has already admitted that earlier distractions hindered his coronavirus response. In March, he said that he was “probably” sidetracked by impeachment earlier this year as the virus spread. Now worried about the Twitter fact-check, the president is sidetracked again. It’s a vital moment for the country, and he’s focusing his right to lie on one specific online platform. After all, as Mark Zuckerberg’s made clear, Facebook has no problem with it. Trump wants to win reelection in November, and that’s his focus right now. Bashing Twitter is a means to that end.