Report: White House drafts executive order to probe ‘online platform bias’ at Google, Facebook

The Trump White House has reportedly drafted an executive order aimed at determining if online platforms including Google and Facebook have violated antitrust laws.

According to Business Insider, which obtained a copy of the proposal, the text states, in part, “it is essential that American citizens are protected from anticompetitive acts by dominant online platforms.”

The document also says federal agencies should use their authorities “to promote competition and ensure that no online platform exercises market power in a way that harms consumers, including through the exercise of bias.”

As such, agencies are ordered within 30 days to submit one action each can “potentially take to protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias.”

The draft comes as executives of large social media platforms recently admitted that some political viewpoints have erroneously been silenced in an effort to combat online harassment.

Though the tech firms have denied a bias against conservatives, President Trump has accused the platforms of just that, tweeting last month: “Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others.”

Bloomberg notes that “the order is in its preliminary stages and hasn’t yet been run past other government agencies, according to a White House official.”