White House drafting order on tech industry 'censorship'

The order, which deals with other topics besides tech bias, is still in the early drafting stages and is not expected to be issued imminently."The President announced at this month’s social media summit that we were going to address this and the administration is exploring all policy solutions," a second White House official said Wednesday when asked about the draft order.Technology news from Washington and Silicon Valley — weekday mornings, in your inbox.By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. They have also faced complaints from liberal activists that they're too slow to remove hate speech, a category that some say includes Trump's own tweets.The issue took center stage during a White House gathering in July in which Trump railed against censorship in front of a roomful of online conservative activists, and directed his administration to explore all “regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech and the free-speech rights of all Americans.” Just this week, Trump warned that he is “watching Google very closely,” citing the case of an engineer who has claimed the company fired him for his conservative views.But the White House effort may be complicated by skepticism in some agencies involved in the discussions about tech policy. The first White House official said the administration sees no conflict between demanding that online companies allow free speech while expecting them to scrutinize people for signs of violence.“They have a role, if not a responsibility, to monitor the content on their sites to ensure that people aren’t threatened with violence or worse, and at the same time to provide a platform that protects and cherishes freedom and free speech, but at the same time does not allow it to descend into a platform for hate,” the first White House official said when asked about the draft executive order.But the federal government’s options on combating online bias are limited by the First Amendment.