Trump’s Executive Order Limiting Work Visas Is a Sure-Fire Way to Delay Economic Recovery

Just when you thought that President Trump could not be any more anti-immigration, he makes an effort to outdo himself by signing an executive order this past Monday. In addition to extending his executive order in April that banned certain green card visa applications (see my analysis of that executive order here), he has now banned certain work visas through the end of 2020. The main visas covered under Trump's latest executive order are as follows:

• H-1B Visa: A temporary work visa for speciality occupations. While these jobs require a Bachelor's degree and practical application of one's studies, a lot of H1-B recipients are in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). For further detail, you can read my 2017 analysis on H-1B visas here.
• H-4 Visa: These visas apply to immediate family members of H-1B visa workers.
• H-2B Visa: A temporary work visa for temporary, non-agricultural workers on a one-time, seasonal, or intermittent basis. Examples include landscaping, amusement attendants, and housekeeping cleaners. 
• L-1 Visa: A non-immigrant, temporary visa for high-level employees of multinational businesses. 

The stated purpose of Trump's executive order is to "protect unemployed Americans from the threat of competition for scarce jobs." Trump is also concerned about placing a "risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the current recovery." Basically, his argument is that allowing for temporary workers are a threat to the U.S. labor market and the job prospects of U.S. citizens. Now is the part where I go through the reasons why Trump's latest executive order is misplaced:

1. We tried this before and it failed. Trump likes to think this will boost economic recovery, and yet, that has not happened. To deal with the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover greatly reduced immigration while deporting 500,000 workers of Mexican descent. The outcome was that it lowered wages and job opportunities for native workers (Lee et al., 2017). In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson cancelled the Bracero program in the hopes of increasing the wages of U.S. workers for farmers. The only measurable effect of cancelling the Bracero program was slowing wage growth (Clemens et al., 2018). During the Great Recession, reducing H-1B visas has been shown to slow job growth for natives in IT-related industries by 55 percent (Peri et al., 2014).
2. Native workers are not being displaced. As I explained in April, Trump is adhering to what is referred to as displacement theory. Essentially, his simplistic view is that guest workers will displace native workers, thereby delaying the recovery. This has hardly played out in practice. Any displacement has been small and primarily has occurred with high school dropouts. Plus, the long-term wage effects of immigration are small. 
• As the Cato Institute explains in its May 2020 report on H-1B visas, H-1B workers earn well above the prevailing wage, which is another way of saying that H-1B workers are not in direct competition with natives. 
• The fact that native workers are not being displaced is all the more so true with L-1 visa holders. The reason for that is L-1 visa holders are already-existing employees of multinational companies. 
3. Immigration can create jobs for native workers. Trump's executive order is violating the lump sum fallacy. His zero-sum thinking essentially leads him to believe that the size of the economy (and by extension, the labor market) is a fixed amount and that it cannot grow. This is patently false. There is some research showing that immigrants on average create 1.2 local jobs per local worker (Hong and McLaren, 2015). In the case of H-1B visa holders, their skills complement the labor market. This is why the American Enterprise Institute found that H-1B visa holders specifically contribute to positive job growth. 
4. H-1B workers contribute positively to productivity. Per my 2017 analysis, H-1B visa workers generate more jobs for native workers on net, greater productivity growth, more patents, and greater tax revenue. Cato Institute points out that due to the great amount of innovation produced, lowering H-1B workers would be tantamount to a less productive society. 

Bottom Line: These visa limitations that Trump imposes will only serve to harm the workers that Trump intends to help. Trump's basic misunderstanding of immigration and labor markets will not last for a few days, but will reverberate in the long-term. If Trump wants a speedy economic recovery, keeping away talented workers and limiting ways for businesses to grow is a funny way of showing it. 

6-28-2020 Addendum: A panel of economic experts surveyed found that a) Trump's ban will weaken the United States' position in STEM and other research, b) fewer students will be attracted to U.S. universities, and c) research activities are bound to move abroad. 

10-26-2020 Addendum: A research paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (Bahar et al., 2020) measured cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs), and found that Trump's executive order cost the equivalent of $100 billion. 

Evidence Base for Wearing Face Masks to Control COVID-19 Is Growing

As we transition from lockdowns to the next stage of getting through this pandemic, face masks are becoming a symbol of what the new normal is to look like. Face masks have also become a symbol of a culture war, and I can understand why tensions are high. Political polarization was really high before the pandemic. Lockdowns only increased the social tension and unrest. There are reasons people do not want to wear masks, ranging from infringement on civil liberties or not wanting to appear weak to that it can be more than a tad uncomfortable. I get it. I personally would rather not wear one either. At the same time, I have to ask myself what the evidence on face masks says. I wrote a piece on the topic last month entitled A Libertarian Case for a Temporary, Partial Face Mask Mandate During the COVID-19 Pandemic. To summarize my argument for face masks:

1. N95 masks and surgical masks are much more effective than cloth face masks. 
2. The argument for face masks is stronger when being inside since germs dilute and decay in the outdoor air more quickly and effectively. 
3. Face masks do a better job of slowing transmission from someone than they do at preventing someone from catching COVID-19 from someone else.
4. There is a minimal cost of inconvenience, and there is even some evidence that face masks provide a net positive economic benefit. 
5. The public health concern of stopping the pandemic from getting worse overrides the discomfort or civil liberties since the decision to not wear a face mask could very well harm another, thereby violating the non-aggression axiom. 
6. As such, there should be a temporary, partial face mask mandate. It should be limited to indoor setting where people are likely to be close to one another. It should also be limited to when the rate of transmission is still high where it would likely cause another surge in infections.

What has changed in the past few weeks? There is more evidence that has come into play. When I first looked at this issue last month, the evidence was limited and often contradictory. Various public health experts were giving conflicting advice. Some were saying to not wear masks because it could make the problem worse. Others were saying that we should because it prevents transmission. It was hard to figure out what was going on. Now we have greater evidence as to what is going on. Here are some of the more recent findings. 

• A study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A found that the median effective R0 of less than one (the amount required to eradicate a disease) could be reached even if face masks were only 50 percent effective (Stutt et al., 2020). This study also found that face masks are twice as effective as slowing the rate of transmission when they are worn before symptoms appear.
• Most previous study on the effectiveness of face masks was in the context of healthcare settings. A meta-analysis from The Lancet (Chu et al., 2020) covering 172 studies analyzing the effects of social distancing, face masks, and eye covers. The study found that there low-certainty evidence supporting the use of face masks. Social distancing measures had a medium-level certainty. 
• The Institute of Labor Economics analyzed the use of face masks in Germany to find a 40 percent reduction in the rate of transmission (Mitze et al., 2020).
• An Italian researcher found that face masks encourage social distancing (Marchiori, 2020). 
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed the COVID-19 outbreak on the Navy's USS Theodore Roosevelt (Payne et al., 2020). They found that those who wore face masks have a lower infection rate than those who did not wear face masks (55.8% versus 80.8%). 
• The World Health Organization (WHO) changed its recommendation from not wearing face masks in public to wearing them in public.

I am sure we will see more and more evidence coming in about various measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Face masks are not meant to be 100 percent or bullet-proof because that is the nature of cloth face masks. What we are seeing, though, is more evidence that face masks can be effective in flattening the curve. Per The Lancet study, I find that social distancing is more effective than face masks (also see Hsiang et al., 2020). That is why face masks still need to be accompanied by social distancing, hand washing, and other non-pharmaceutical interventions. 

Police Unions: Another Example of the Problems with Public-Sector Collective Bargaining

Public-sector unions have been a topic of criticism on this blog. Generally speaking, public-sector unions drive up budgetary costs while decreasing employment, result in a more inefficient allocation of resources, and generates less profits. Teacher unions and the collective bargaining have been shown to lower student test scores, amongst other negative effects. Today, I am going to scrutinize another form of public-sector unionism: police unions.

In light of George Floyd's death and the protests that have occurred, policing reform is front and center of political debate. The political climate against police officers is strong enough where affiliates of the AFL-CIO have severed their ties with the International Union of Police Associations. This is a conflict for both the Left and the Right alike. The Left wants to be tough on policing reform, but would have to recognize the role that collective bargaining has played in the systemic issues. The Right is in a pickle because they have a problem with the collective bargaining aspect, but do not want to be perceived as anti-police or soft on crime. 

What I argue here today is that much like with other public-sector unions, police unions create perverse incentives that contribute to the problems pointed out by critics of police abuse. Before I begin, I want to say that the system is not completely inept. As the Washington Post pointed out in its 2017 analysis, 37 of some of the largest police municipalities had collectively fired 1,881 officers between 2006 and 2017. That being said, there are still major inefficiencies when it comes to police unionism. For one, one out of every four officers part of the Washington Post analysis were found to have been rehired. If you want some shocking anecdotal evidence, you can read this Atlantic article here. To add onto that, Reuters analyzed 82 major cities and their police union contracts. Two of the major abuses as a result of provisions within the police officers' contracts are the ability to erase disciplinary records and giving officers access to all investigative materials. 

There is a limited amount of research on the topic, but let us take a look at some of the academic literature on the effects of police unions:

• Increased rates of misconduct and increased death. Police unions have contributed to misconduct since the 1960s (Bies, 2017). A paper from the University of Chicago looked at "moral character violations" of police officers in Florida from 1996 to 2015. Their main takeaway was that the collective bargaining of police officers resulted in a 40 percent increase of police violence (Dharmapala et al., 2018). University of Victoria economist Rob Gillezeau preliminarily found that collective bargaining of police officers is responsible for 60 to 70 deaths annually. 
• Limited accountability measures. A article from Duke Law Review shows how collective bargaining of police officers limits officer interrogations after alleged misconduct, indemnifies police officers [similar to qualified immunity], limits the length of internal investigations, and de facto bans civilian oversight (Rushin, 2017).
• Collective bargaining of police officers is a de facto tax. Taxpayers indirectly cough up the cost for public-sector collective bargaining, whether in the form of paying for a public-sector worker's higher-than-market-value wages, more inefficient allocation of resources, or a lower GDP. In the case of police unions, there are not simply the general costs of negotiating. Police unions have a tendency to push back on internal misconduct reforms, which can be quite costly to handle in court (Harmon, 2012).

Existing research and findings conclude that collective bargaining of police officers results in greater obstacles to disciplinary actions and greater misconduct. There needs to be accountability and discipline of bad apples because public safety is otherwise in jeopardy. The current collective bargaining practices of police unions permits too little accountability and too much abuse. By removing enabling provisions and eliminating [or at least minimizing collective bargaining power in the form of something such as a limited form of minority union bargaining (see Fisk and Richardson, 2016), we would be a step closer to the policing reform that the citizens of the United States deserve. 

Eliminating Qualified Immunity Would Curtail Rights Violations and Bring Greater Accountability to Law Enforcement

The unfortunate death of George Floyd caused by Officer Derek Chauvin has brought up a myriad of questions as to how to deal with police misconduct. A phrase that I am sure you have heard being thrown around is "qualified immunity." You are probably wondering how one could make a connection between modern-day policing and a nineteenth-century statute.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Section 1983 (42 U.S.C. §1983) allows for people to sue the government for civil rights violations. That sounds like a good thing because it holds government officials accountable for bad behavior. This makes sense since the Act was created to curtail civil rights violations that were particularly going in the South at this time. The plain language of 42 U.S.C. §1983 was upheld until the Warren Court. In the case of Pierson v. Ray (1967), the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) argued that "a policeman's lot is not so unhappy that he must choose between being charged with dereliction of duty if he does not arrest when he has probable cause, and being mulcted [fined] in damages if he does." And this is how qualified immunity was born.

It was in the case of Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982) that SCOTUS ruled that qualified immunity applies except when it does not violate "clearly established" statutory or constitutional rights. The process of determining if something is "clearly established" was not formalized until 2001 (Saucier v. Katz). The first step is determining if there was a constitutional violation. The second step is determining whether the right was established at the time the conduct took place. For qualified immunity to not apply to the officer, there would need to be a previous court case with sufficiently similar circumstances rendering the conduct unconstitutional. Pearson v. Callahan (2009) ruled that the constitutionality of the violation remains undefined, which makes it more difficult to pass the hurdle of qualified immunity.

Now that we have gotten through the legal history, let's get into why this matters for policing. It was the initial case of Pierson v. Ray that established qualified immunity based on the notion that worries about liability would get in the way of their work. Law enforcement officers do not think about being sued when performing their duties (Schwartz, 2018; Hall, 2003; Vaughn et al., 2001; Garrison, 1995).

Tangentially, the worry is that even if they do their jobs properly, they will be burdened with the trial process and the associated costs. Qualified immunity was meant to protect all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. This argument comes in two sub-arguments. The first claim is that qualified immunity exists to prevent officers from being bankrupt from civil lawsuits. The problem with that argument is that governments pay 99.98% percent of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered (Schwartz, 2014), which is to say that police officers do not pay the bill in such a trial (Emmet and Maazel, 2000). Even if indemnification were an issue (which it clearly is not), it would still be fine because it would give the government an incentive to crack down on abusive officers. Derek Chauvin had 18 complaints against him, and yet he was allowed to resume working. Perhaps that would not have been the case had qualified immunity not existed.

The second argument is that qualified immunity exists to protect officers from the burdens of the discover phase.  A study in Yale Law Journal found that qualified immunity is rarely applied early enough to protect officers from civil discovery. The study found that qualified immunity could be raised in 3.9 percent of cases. In practice, only in 0.6 percent of cases was such protection able to be offered (Schwartz, 2017).

Another point I would like to bring up is a study showing how qualified immunity increases the costs, time, and complexity of litigating constitutional claims (Schwartz, 2019). This study is more pessimistic in stating that the win rates would stay the same if we removed qualified immunity. However, removing the costs would increase the number of cases, which means that more justice would be served.

What we see here is that qualified immunity actually does very little to help with constitutional litigation. This brings me to the reasons to criticize the practice of qualified immunity. As the Cato Institute points out, qualified immunity is an "atextual, ahistorical judicial doctrine that shields state officials from liability." There was no good-faith defense (certainly during the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1871) that would justify SCOTUS' ruling. As a matter of fact, prior to 1967, officers were strictly liable for unlawful acts (Pfander and Hunt, 2010).

Let's go with the "clearly established" clause from the 1982 SCOTUS case. This clause is argued to have made it more difficult to make it prosecute officers when they commit constitutional violations on the job. International news organization Reuters released a report on qualified immunity in May 2020. Reuters not only found that qualified immunity made it more difficult for the case to go to trial, but even when it does go to trial, there are many instances in which the courts favor the officers. Since Pearson v. Callahan, the officer is more likely to win, according to Reuters. An analysis from Notre Dame Law Review confirms Reuters' finding by concluding that officers win 70 percent of the time (Reinert, 2018).

Qualified immunity is judicial activism at its worst because it violated Fourth Amendment rights, not to mention a violation of the separation of power that the Constitution was meant to protect (see Baude, 2018). It sends the message that officers can "shoot first and ask questions later" while protecting bad cops.

The fact that something so unconstitutional and ineffective exists in our legal system is mind-blowing. We need to do better as a society when it comes to protecting constitutional rights, and one of those ways to improve police officer accountability is to eliminate qualified immunity or at least limit qualified immunity with "excessive reasonableness." Given the conservative nature of SCOTUS (and when I say conservative, I mean classical conservatism, i.e., it leans on tradition and established principles) and love for stare decisis, it is unlikely that SCTOUS will overrule its previous ruling. On the plus side, bipartisan legislation was introduced last week to eliminate qualified immunity, so we shall see what happens. I don't expect eliminating qualified immunity will eliminate police misconduct, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.

How Lockdowns Became the Catalyst for the Protests and Riots in Response to George Floyd's Death

2020 has already been a crazy year. First, there is a pandemic. Then there is ample panic where multiple countries put their citizenry on lockdown. As a result of the contraction of economic activity caused by these lockdowns, we are experiencing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. If that were not enough, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin (who is white) knelt on the neck of George Floyd (who was black) for about eight minutes, thereby causing Floyd's unfortunate death. Floyd was arrested after allegedly using a $20 bill at a market. Floyd was already restrained and begging for Chauvin to stop. Floyd's unfortunate death led to their being protests against police brutality throughout the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. Protests then spread throughout the United States (and eventually internationally) in support of justice and policing reform, as well as a revival of Black Lives Matter at the forefront of media attention. Although there have been peaceful protests, there has also been looting and rioting that has caused considerable economic damage.

The specifics of the Floyd killing, general abuses perpetrated by certain members of law enforcement, and racial disparities that still exist to this day play a clearer role on how we reached the point of protesting and rioting in the United States. The lockdowns, on the other hand, are not an immediately apparent contributor. However, when you think through the nature of the lockdowns and their effects, what we see is that the lockdowns became the catalyst for the protests and riots to take place.

The first and most obvious facet of the lockdowns is the economic damage that the lockdowns have left in their wake. There have been more than 40 million jobless claims. U-6 unemployment, which is a figure that includes discouraged, workers, marginally unattached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons, is at 22.4 percent. 40 percent of low-income earners have lost their jobs, which is even more telling since low-income households have fewer savings and financial stability to begin with. While there is some hope that a significant amount of this unemployment is temporary because of the lockdowns, it is nevertheless bad enough where the Great Recession pales in comparison. Paying rent is getting more difficult. The economic stresses caused by the lockdowns is increasing stress-related disease and suicide, what is being labeled "deaths of despair." The mental health organization Well Being Trust made a baseline estimate last month that there will be an extra 75,000 dead from these "deaths of despair."

This gets into the economic concept of opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is "the return of a foregone option less than your return on your chosen option." It is the price of the next best thing you could have made if you did not make your first choice. What does opportunity cost have to do with the riots? Prior to the lockdowns, most people had jobs they had to attend. With the lockdowns, a lot of people have been unable to work and confined in many ways. Business closures make it that much easier to go out protesting or rioting. This economic concept plays out in reality.

Francesco Rocca, who is the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, predicted in March that the increased unemployment and and increased risk of suicide would result in social unrest in major Western cities. I expressed concerns about social unrest in early April, and lo and behold, it is here.

We can look at history. The Great Depression saw its fair share of unemployment protesting and riots.  According to the University of Washington, there were 702 such demonstrations between 1930 and 1932. More recently, we can look to the Los Angeles riots of 1992 in response to Rodney King's death. What caused those riots? Two economists also looked at international riot data and cross-city comparisons in context of the L.A. riots of 1992 to find that high unemployment played a major role (DiPasquale and Glaser, 1996).

If certain case studies are not enough, consider this. In its 2013 report, the International Labor Organization (ILO) found that unemployment is the single largest factor in social unrest. To quote the ILO paper, "A one standard deviation increase in unemployment raises social unrest by 0.39 standard deviations, while a one standard deviation increase in GDP growth reduces social unrest by 0.19 standard deviations." People feel restless, stressed, anxious, and angry given everything the lockdowns have caused and the uncertainty surrounding them. Should it be a surprise that research confirms this intuitive concept?

The second facet of lockdowns that contributed to the lockdowns is that of social isolation. In its 2016 report, the centrist Brookings Institution describes to what it refers to as "third places." Third places are places that people spend time at between being at home ("first place") and work ("second place"). Examples of third places are restaurants, houses of worship, recreation centers, pool halls, and parks. They are places that where one can develop community, build relationships, and create positive memories. It is not simply the place that matters, but the people. Human beings are social creatures and thus crave social interaction. We were not meant to work all day and binge-watch Netflix all night. This sort of mass social isolation is not tenable, certainly not anything beyond the immediate-term. The American Psychological Association points out that social isolation can lead to increased risk of "depression, poor sleep quality, impaired executive function, accelerated cognitive decline, poor cardiovascular function, and impaired immunity at every stage of life." In short, the social isolation brought on by the lockdowns caused people to collectively snap.

Finally, there is the additional police enforcement as a result of lockdowns. Lockdowns are a de jure ban on millions who try to earn a living, leave home, or go out to have fun. Combining the criminalizing of these aspects of living with the face mask bans and social distancing requirements, it has caused more friction between law enforcement and citizens trying to enforce what would be considered petty infractions. A few examples to list:

• The New York Police Department reported that there was an increase of altercations as a result of enforcing COVID-related laws.
• Officers in Philadelphia dragged a man off a bus for not wearing a face mask. Similarly, a mother was arrested in New York City for her refusal to wear a face mask.
• A man in the East Village of New York City was beaten for not maintaining social distancing (see video here).
• A woman in Idaho was arrested for being in a closed park, and was charged with trespassing.
• A business owner in Colorado was arrested for using his own property. 
• A SWAT team in Texas raided a bar that defied the lockdown and arrested the proprietors. 
• On the other side of the pond, the United Kingdom has enacted a "bonking ban". Earlier this week, the United Kingdom mandated that having two or more people having sex indoors is prohibited under British law. Good luck enforcing that one!

To recap, economic downturn caused by the lockdowns, the social isolation, and negative interactions with additional police enforcement have created the perfect storm. I'm not here to say that the lockdowns were the sole factor in the riots and protests. Like with so many other phenomena, there are multiple factors. At the same time, we would be kidding ourselves if we thought that the lockdowns played no role whatsoever. The years of policing abuse were the kindling, the lockdowns were the firewood, and the death of George Floyd was the match that lit the fuse on these protests and riots. Let's not forget this as the list of costs incurred by these lockdowns continues to get longer and longer.

Section 230: How Trump's Attempt to Regulate Twitter Is Unnecessary and Would Harm Freedom of Speech

I was wondering when there would be something inane enough in the news to take a break from writing about coronavirus. It looks like I have found that something. Last week, Trump made a couple of tweets about how mail-in voting could lead to widespread fraud. In response, Twitter fact-checked the tweets and applied warning labels to said tweets. In less than a day, Trump signed an executive order to regulate social media companies from censoring. Trying to stop the censoring of conservative sites has become a cause célèbre for Trump and conservatives.  In attempt to address it, Trump decided to go after Section 230 in the executive order. What is Section 230?

Section 230 is part of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 that states that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Essentially, it protects social media platforms and other internet platforms from being liable for what their-party actors say or do on the platform. This Section is important because it is the legal framework that allows for people to efficiently post YouTube videos, Yelp reviews, comments on websites, and Facebook statuses. So why is Trump trying to dial back Section 230 protections such a problem?

The evidence for censorship of conservative voices on social media is scant and anecdotal. The basis for such regulation in the first place is that conservative voices and media are being silenced. A March 2020 working paper from George Mason University scrutinized the claim and illustrated how little evidence there is for such a claim (Feeney, 2020). Tech trade association NetChoice shows that such liberal media outlets as Huffington Post, the Daily Show, and Young Turks were more likely to have their content restricted than conservative media outlet Prager U. The Economist shows that Google restricts both left-leaning and right-leaning content alike (see below).

It is based on a misunderstanding of the First Amendment. Twitter is a private platform. The First Amendment only applies to government action regarding speech. There have been a number of court cases that state that private platforms are not subject to applying First Amendment standards to their content moderation: Cubby v. CompuServe, Prager University v. Google LLC, Freedom Watch v. Google, Johnson v. Twitter, Taylor v. Twitter, amongst others. As a matter of fact, Trump's attempt to regulate a private platform very would could end up being ruled as a violation of the First Amendment.

It is based on a misreading of Section 230. As the Cato Institute brings up on its legislative analysis of Section 230, it is Section 230(c)(2)(a) that explicitly allows for platform providers to remove content they find "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable."  The reasoning in the executive order violates the plain meaning of Section 230.

Imposing neutrality or fairness on social media could backfire. Government attempts to control speech undermine free speech. We already saw how bad free speech got when the government imposed the Fairness Doctrine on traditional broadcasting. Past administrations used the Fairness Doctrine to blunt dissenting opinions and trample on the First Amendment. Trump's executive order could set legal precedent for other forms of censoring free speech beyond social media platforms. It would not only be an issue for Twitter or Facebook. Trump could use it to silent such liberal comedians as Trevor Noah or Stephen Colbert. What happens if Joe Biden makes it to the White House? This precedent could be used to silent conservative media. If history has taught us anything, a government's attempt at content neutrality would likely result in silencing voices, not amplifying them.

An absence of Section 230 would likely mean less free speech. One of the main aspects of Section 230 is allowing websites and online platforms moderate without risking liability for third-party content on their platforms or websites. It is because of Section 230 that Yelp does not get sued every time someone posts a bad review on Yelp. Imagine if YouTube got sued for all the idiotic comments made in its Comments section. It would be a legal nightmare! If the platforms became legally responsible for third-party content, Facebook, Twitter, and other companies would have greater incentive to remove any content that would be legally problematic or controversial. Trump going after Section 230 is ironic because if it were not for Section 230, Twitter would likely shut down Trump's account for liability reasons.

Other unintended consequences and costs of repealing Section 230. The Electronic Frontier Foundation brings up unintended consequences of removing Section 230. If online service providers are spending money on fighting legal battles, it diminishes the ability of social media platforms to innovate since that money could have been better spent elsewhere. Social media platforms would also have to spend more money on monitoring content in real-time to avoid liability. Given the number of posts on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the like, it would be impractical to moderate every post. These costs could be passed onto online users, which would mean not only censoring your freedom of speech, but also less access to online platforms and resources.

Conclusion. As a private company, Twitter has no right to stay neutral or owe anyone a platform, and that includes the president. Whether Twitter or Facebook is correct in their judgement of fact-checking is a separate question. The First Amendment guarantees social media platforms the right to do so. If you have a problem with a certain platform, delete your account and use a competing platform. That advice goes for President Trump, as well.

Attempting to penalize private companies for purely political reasons under the guise of defining federal regulation of free speech as free speech is as Orwellian as "2+2=5." It is truly vexing and disturbing that Trump is using the government to silence a private company simply for questioning him. If the president were truly able to exert unilateral force to decide how a private company may operate, it would lead to additional erosion of our democratic institutions.

Whether Trump likes it or not, Section 230 is one of the single most important laws protecting free speech on the internet. Without Section 230, individuals, corporations, and government leaders who want to silent free speech on the internet would be more able to do so. If Trump were to get his way, not only would it cost platform providers and users more, but it would be a major assault on the First Amendment. Fortunately for us all, Trump's executive order has much more bark than bite. At the same time, it does not matter if the executive order is unenforceable or if Trump created the executive order to appeal to his voting base to get ready for the November elections: it creates a precedent that would make us all less free.