The US Justice Department plans to submit proposed legislation to Congress that would roll back legal protections for online platforms such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc if they censor content or fail to police misconduct on their websites, according to a Trump administration official.

The move follows a feud between US president Donald Trump and Twitter Inc, which last month slapped fact-checks on some of his tweets, prompting him to issue an executive order aiming to narrow a liability shield enjoyed by social-media companies.

The proposed legislation could be sent to lawmakers as early as this week, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because the plan hasn’t been made public yet. The Wall Street Journal reported on the proposed legislation earlier Wednesday.

The companies enjoy immunity from lawsuits over content that users post under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The provision, which doesn’t apply to violations of federal criminal law, has become a target of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who object to its breadth and describe it as a giveaway to technology companies.

The details of the proposed legislation were still being worked out and could change. But in general the plan aims to prevent companies from removing content they find objectionable without providing explanations and adhering to their content-moderation policies, said the official.

It also would limit protections when companies allow third-party content that’s deemed harmful or illegal, the official said.

Also on Wednesday, four Republican senators led by Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced a measure to remove the liability protection if companies don’t fulfill a promise to moderate content in good faith, according to an announcement from Hawley’s office. Discriminating on content moderation would constitute a violation of the promise - echoing GOP efforts to use the legal shield to address what they say is systematic silencing of conservatives by Internet platforms.

Trump’s executive order aimed to limit the companies’ immunity in cases of bias, which many legal scholars described as unconstitutional, and directed the Justice Department to prepare legislation.

 - Bloomberg