Trump weighs draft order targeting Google, Facebook

Washington : President Donald Trump is weighing an executive order that would open federal antitrust and criminal probes into Google, Facebook and other social media firms, US media said Saturday, though the White House promptly dis-tanced itself from the reports. Last month, Trump stepped up his attacks on big tech companies, warning them to be “careful,” and slamming what he called “rigged” internet search results.

The US president had complained that Google searches for “Trump news” brought up mostly negative stories about him.Google strongly rejected any bias claims. The White House’s draft executive order focuses on alleged “bias” at the companies.

“Executive departments and agencies with authorities that could be used to enhance competition among online platforms (agencies) shall... use those authorities to promote competition and ensure that no online platform exer-cises market power in a way that harms consumers, including through the exercise of bias,” read a draft of the re-port circulated by US media.

“Not later than 30 days from the date of this order, agencies shall submit to the Director of the National Economic Council an initial list of (1) actions each agency can potentially take to protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias.”