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Comment by remarkEon | Hacker News Reader

>He’s doing an end run around Congress using Executive Orders in an attempt to get what he wants now.

And you can thank the previous guy in charge for setting this precedent, that you can do whatever you want via Executive Order. I have little sympathy here.

>as the Constitution is written, he cannot force a private website to carry his speech

Not quite sure this is actually the question at hand. It's about choice of moderation is it not? In any case ... thankfully we have a Court system that is designed to handle these types of questions.

>There’s also the fact that repealing Section 230 would be absolutely detrimental to the internet.

Not following you. Maybe the social media and tech companies have to hire a lot more layers instead of bloating their HR departments. Probably a good development imo, since HR people like to pretend they work in tech but what they really do is bureaucracy.

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> And you can thank the previous guy in charge for setting this precedent, that you can do whatever you want via Executive Order. I have little sympathy here.

If you truly think that Obama invented the Executive Order or was the first to use them frequently, you are laughably misinformed. Use of Executive Order has been common for at least 150 years.

I don't. I wasn't clear. EO abuses have been ongoing for at least 150 years, like you said. I'm merely pointing out that we're now only worried about it because Trump is bad and thus now EOs are bad.

This isn't true. Both Bush and Obama were criticized for them (probably other Presidents as well, I just wasn't following politics before then). But that's not what your original statement said:

> And you can thank the previous guy in charge for setting this precedent, that you can do whatever you want via Executive Order.

That statement is just pure bias, not fact.

> And you can thank the previous guy in charge for setting this precedent, that you can do whatever you want via Executive Order. I have little sympathy here.

What is this argument? Why is it always “look at what Obama did! Therefore it’s ok!” when Trump does something bad?

I'm making an argument that Executive Order abuse is bad, but for whatever reason we're only worried about it now. When the guy in charge isn't the usual kind of ... uh ... President. If you want me to say it George W. Bush's EO abuses were also bad.

What? No. Executive order is an order to the executive branch from it's boss the President. It's not going around Congress at all- it's separate from Congress. It's not changing law. All Presidents do this and are allowed to.

You can't do whatever you want via executive order. This is Trump telling the FCC, one of his departments, how to operate, which he can do, as much as I disagree with it.

The powers of the executive branch are not unlimited and not every order is Constitutionally valid. Especially ones restricting freedom of speech by private individuals.

You're right, I'm merely defending the executive order and outlining it's not a magic wand that lets the President do everything they want.

What of the President's freedom of speech? In one possible (IMO likely) context that it will be viewed in by courts or at least the FCC, Twitter edited this President's speech to contradict himself.

In the US, Congress must explicitly delegate rulemaking powers to an executive agency. Absent such delegation, they cannot issue rules that would change the execution or implementation of the relevant statute. (Rules in this context are federal agency interpretations defining or implementing statutes passed by Congress.)

It appears that Congress did not delegate to the FCC the power to make rules under/implementing the CDA, so regardless of Trump's order, the FCC can do precisely diddly squat about changing the rules of the CDA.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/legal-experts...

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