Trump Claims Social Media Platforms Stifle Conservative Voices
By Ted Johnson
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – WASHINGTON — President Trump said that social media platforms are “discriminating against” Republican and conservative voices, but “we won’t let that happen.”
Companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook deny that they have targeted or singled out rightward forms of content. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) grilled CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the claims at a hearing in April. Facebook, Google’s YouTube, and Apple have restricted or temporarily limited right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s accounts for violating terms of service or community guidelines. Those include bans on harassment and hate speech.
“Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices,” Trump wrote. “Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others…….”
He added, “….Censorship is a very dangerous thing & absolutely impossible to police. If you are weeding out Fake News, there is nothing so Fake as CNN & MSNBC, & yet I do not ask that their sick behavior be removed. I get used to it and watch with a grain of salt, or don’t watch at all..”
The president said that the policy should be to allow all speech and “we will all just have to figure it out!”
….Too many voices are being destroyed, some good & some bad, and that cannot be allowed to happen,” he wrote. “Who is making the choices, because I can already tell you that too many mistakes are being made. Let everybody participate, good & bad, and we will all just have to figure it out!”
Republicans have frequently pointed to the politics of Silicon Valley, which lean left, in making their claims.
Trump also said that “censorship is a very dangerous thing and absolutely impossible to police. If you are weeding our Fake News, there is nothing so Fake as CNN & MSNBC, and yet I do not ask that their sick behavior be removed. I get used to it and watch with a grain of salt, or don’t watch at all.”
Trump has referred to the “fake” news media as the “enemy of the American people.” In October, he lashed out at NBC News and suggested that the network’s broadcast license should be challenged. The FCC does not directly license networks, but issues them to individual stations.
“With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!” he said.
