Dismiss Big Tech’s challenge to social media order, Trump admin asks court

The Trump administration has filed a motion asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit against the president’s executive order targeting social media companies, calling it a “profound misunderstanding,” according to a copy of the motion seen by Reuters.

The lawsuit was brought in June by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a Washington-based tech group funded by Facebook Inc , Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc. It marked the first major legal test of President Donald Trump’s directive.

Trump issued an executive order in May against social media companies in an attempt to regulate platforms where he has been criticized, just days after Twitter took the rare step of fact-checking one of his tweets about mail-in voting. Trump threatened to scrap or weaken a law known as Section 230, which protects internet companies from litigation over content posted by users.