Federal officials raise concerns about White House plan to police alleged social media censorship

Officials from the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have expressed serious concerns about a draft Trump administration executive order seeking to regulate tech giants, according to several people familiar with the matter. In a closed-door meeting in July, officials from the two agencies met to discuss the matter with a Commerce Department office that advises the White House on telecommunications, the people said. A key issue raised in the meeting was the possibility the Trump administration's plan may be unconstitutional, one of the people said. The draft order proposes to put the FCC and FTC in charge of overseeing claims of partisan censorship on social media. But critics of the idea, including some legislators and policy analysts in the tech community, say it amounts to appointing a government "speech police" in violation of the First Amendment.