'Social media cos stifling free idea exchanges, competition'

Washington DC: The Trump administration is seeking to initiate steps against social media companies for allegedly stifling free exchange of ideas and hurting competition.

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has convened a meeting of the state attorney generals in this regard, the Department of Justice said.

"The attorney general has convened a meeting with a number of state attorneys general this month to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms," the department's spokesman Devin O'Malley said.

The Justice Department has listened to the senate intelligence committee hearing on social media.

The possible legal crackdown by the administration has been opposed by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a non-profit public policy think-tank.

Social media platforms find themselves caught between some policy makers arguing that they have a moral and legal obligation to remove legal, but offensive, content, and others who are calling for these companies to be punished for censoring some of this extreme political speech, ITIF vice president Daniel Castro claimed.

He said social media platforms have the right to determine what type of legal speeches they will permit on their platforms.

"It is inappropriate for the federal government to use the threat of law enforcement to limit companies from exercising this right.

"In particular, law enforcement should not threaten social media companies with unwarranted investigations for their efforts to rid their platforms of extremists who incite hate and violence," Castro said.

The ITIF argued that companies such as Facebook and Twitter have taken important steps to detect illegitimate users, identify fake news and increase ad

transparency.