Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Sponsored by Silicon Valley Bank, Ideas Bank here. I'm Dan Permac. On today's show, WeWorkP reps its IPO and new details on Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide.

But first, speech police.

So the White House last week reportedly circulated a draft executive order that would have the Federal Communications Commission effectively oversee and monitor what's shared on social media platforms.

It's the exact sort of thing you'd expect small government-loving

Republicans to loudly oppose, but it has a lot of their support because of a widespread

belief that companies like Twitter and Facebook suppress conservative voices. This policy, if

enacted, theoretically would punish tech companies for such censorship, thus causing them not

to censor in the first

place.

So a few things.

First, there isn't actual evidence that social media platform censor partisan political

content.

Yep, there are lots of anecdotal examples, but nothing approaching systemic bias.

And when confronted about it during congressional hearings, social media executives have

fairly persuasively shown how rare it is

for any content to be removed and how, even within that tiny sample size, much of the time

it's a mistake that is later rectified. Plus, that happens on both the left and the right.

And even furthermore, the biggest user of Twitter might be President Trump and all of his

tweets go through.

Second, this policy would essentially threaten to remove what's known as a Section 230 protection from social media companies.

And Section 230 says that if a website doesn't moderate user-generated content, then it isn't liable for the content.

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